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SAPS Missed targets, missing details and missed deadlines..

Missed targets, missing details and missed deadlines left the country’s police chief, General Bheki Cele, feeling like he and his team had received “a vicious sjambokking” from MPs this week.

Cele led a top SAPS delegation that spent three days being grilled by the National Assembly’s police committee.

The team – which included Cele’s five deputies and an assortment of divisional commanders – was closely interrogated by MPs over the SAPS strategic plan for 2011/12 and its budget.

MPs wanted to know why the strategic plan did not reflect court-ready dockets as a performance measure, when the information was compiled at station level as matter of course – and why, nine years down the line, sector policing was still being rolled out without deadlines stipulating by when each police station would adopt this management tool.

But what got MPs hot under the collar was the decision to lower SAPS targets for reducing violent and other serious crimes. MPs heard the target for reducing violent contact crime, such as murder, rape and assault would be set at between 4 and 7 percent, down from the previous national target of 7 to 10 percent.

For other serious crimes, including drug dealing, police would need to try and reach a 2 percent reduction target. MPs from across the political spectrum questioned whether these figures weren’t just “a thumb suck”.

The police team’s explanation that the crime reduction targets were not a SAPS decision, but agreed to by the criminal justice cluster as whole, did not wash with MPs.

Also rejected was the explanation that the crime reduction targets were part of Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s delivery agreement with President Jacob Zuma. “We require more. We don’t accept the 2 percent. We don’t accept the 4 to 7 percent,” said ANC MP Annelize van Wyk, adding that the police had to account for how they spent the billions they received.

”If the cabinet – the cluster – decides, it doesn’t mean we don’t have a right to know,” said committee chairwoman Sindi Chikunga. “Where does this come from? What informs this 4 to 7 percent? Why did it change? It seems it’s yet another thumbsuck. It is yet again yet another number. Next time (we’ll be told) 4 to 7 (percent) isn’t achievable; let it be 1 to 2 (percent).”

Firearms licence applications were also a sore point. Visible policing head Lieutenant General Lesetja Mothiba said it was all systems go for applications to be processed within 90 days, if all their paperwork was completed. But MPs pointed out that some applications, submitted more than a year ago, were still languishing at police stations instead of being sent to Pretoria for processing. - Independent on Saturday

This article applies to: Middle, Rontree 1, Rontree 2, Glen, Bakoven, Village, Clifton, CPF