CSP & PSIRA 2021/22 Annual Performance Plans; with Deputy Minister

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Police

07 May 2021
Chairperson: Ms T Joemat-Pettersson (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

Video: Portfolio Committee on Police
Annual Performance Plans

In a virtual meeting, the Committee met to be briefed on the Annual Performance Plans (APPs), strategic plans and budgets for the 2021/22 financial year of the Civilian Secretariat for Police (CSPS) and the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA).

The Secretariat outlined its strategic focus for the financial year and over the medium term which included addressing the lack of trust in the police, localised approaches to address crime and targeted implementation of policies. Key achievements over the previous financial year included the development of strategies and campaigns, capacity building, research, reports and legislation.

The Committee was concerned by some of the targets and their measurement such as trust in the police. The Committee discussed the mandate of the Secretariat regarding its role played in managing Community Policing Forums, assisting SAPS avoid ligation, recruitment and ensuring the correct members were promoted, the appointment of senior police management and the general placement of the CSPS within the Department of Police, as informed by the White Paper. Concerns were raised regarding the visibility of the Secretariat and its public communication. Members were also worried that while there was a budget ringfenced for the office of the DPCI Judge in the CSPS APP, there were no performance targets attached to the funds.

Members took great exception to the fact that the Secretariat revealed it was asked to prioritise certain bills and as a result, the legislation the Committee planned to focus on were not progressed very far. The Committee agreed to call the CSPS to a special meeting to deal with this as the Committee had prioritised key legislation be passed before the term of the current Parliament ended. The Committee emphasised it would not leave the term without this legislation being processed. The Chairperson stated that the Committee was going to place the Civilian Secretariat under a magnifying glass.

PSIRA took the Committee through the amendments to the strategic plan, outcome indicators and give-year targets. The Committee was also taken through the annual performance plan per programme and key risks and mitigation. PSIRA’s focus remained looking at the funding model, continuous training, capacitation, industry governance, transformation, awareness,  regulations, digitisation, decentralisation and research and development.

Turning to the budget, budget growth over the MTEF period is estimated at an average of 10% which is mainly collected through annual fees and administration fees. Future estimates and plans indicates a higher growth in expenditure vs. revenue (budget) with the existing funding model.

The Committee was pleased with the stable performance of the entity. Members questioned self assessments, the employment of foreign nationals, non-compliance, inspections, public awareness and the increased expenditure on consultants.

Meeting report

Opening remarks

The Chairperson greeted everyone and gave an apology from the Minister and other Committee Members. The Minister was attending a funeral service of the regent queen. Several Committee Members asked to be excused and were allowed.

The Chairperson proceeded to raise a sad incident where the Khayelitsha police told a complainant to investigate her own sexual assault/rape case. The woman had gone to the police a day after she was sexually assaulted, and the officer told her to investigate her own complaint. This had happened in March. She asked the Deputy Minister to investigate the policeman. This was very concerning given the emphasis on fighting gender-based violence and femicide. Mr Albert Fritz, the Western Cape MEC for Community Safety, was also attending to this matter. In the previous year, a rape victim also accused the Langa police of assaulting her while she was reporting the crime. That was a form of secondary rape and was not to be tolerated. There was need to send a strong message to police because it meant that other rape victims would not have the freedom to go and report their abusers.

The Deputy Minister of Police, Mr Cassel Mathale, asked if he could be given the case number and the contact details of the complainant if the case was open.

Mr O Terblanche (DA) requested the Deputy Minister provide the Committee with a report back on what happened, at some point.

The Chairperson stated that she would certainly request this, and she would also engage with MEC Fritz so they could get to the bottom of it.

The Deputy Minister replied that the officer was not a representation of the South African Police Service (SAPS). He/she did not belong to the Service and the administrative processes of such conduct would be attended to quickly and he would report back to the Committee.

CSPS 2021/22 APP & Budget

The Deputy Minister informed the Committee that he was there with the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service (CSPS) which was led by the Secretary of Police, Mr Alvin Rapea. Mr Rapea would lead the presentation of the Annual Performance Plan (APP) for 2021.

Mr Rapea highlighted that he was accompanied by the Director of Strategic Planning, Ms Itumeleng Ledwaba-Moagi, who was going to lead the presentation, and Mr Tumelo Nkojoana, the Chief Financial Officer, and other executive team members. The first presentation was going to be the budget in which they would indicate Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) budgets so that the plan mirrored the resources available.

The presentation covered an overview of the 2021/22 budget and MTEF estimates. The strategic focus of the entity for the financial year and over the medium term includes:

-Addressing the lack of trust in the police and improving police service delivery;

-The need for a localised approach to address crime concerns;

-Targeted implementation of the Provincial and Local Crime Prevention Frameworks and District Action Plans, in line with the District Development Model (DDM);

-Implementation of the 2016 White Paper on Safety and Security;

-Beefing up detective services and forensics, as well as facilitating the modernisation of SAPS through an e-Policing Policy;

- Finalisation and implementation of an Integrated Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy (ICVPS);

-Implementation of the Partnership Strategy and Framework which seeks to mobilise key role-players and harness the social capital in communities by facilitating greater involvement of various community safety structures in the fight against crime

Key achievements in 2020/21 included:

-Development and approval of the Recruitment, Selection and Retention Strategy; Change Management Strategy; and Operations Management Framework;

-Anti-crime campaigns conducted as a pro-active approach to the current situation on crime and gender-based violence (GBV) in the country, and in support of government regulations in the fight against COVID19;

-Capacity-building sessions conducted with all provinces on the Detectives Services project;

-Report on DVA compliance monitoring was produced and community awareness campaigns conducted in seven provinces in order to increase community awareness on the role of the CSPS in monitoring DVA implementation and the responsibilities of the SAPS;

-Research briefs produced on trends analysis of SAPS’ assault and torture discipline cases; five-year trends analysis of trio crimes; and SAPS’ discipline management related to misconduct cases of lost or stolen state firearms.

-South African Police Service Amendment Bill was published in the Gazette for public comments.

Emerging priorities for 2021/22 included:

-Finalisation of an e-Policing Policy towards the attainment of a 4IR policing environment

-Facilitating implementation of the ICVPS for safety and service delivery

-Research on whether the SAPS achieving its constitutional mandate

-Making impact in the JCPS cluster restructuring process for effective implementation of policies and improved service delivery

-Monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the Minister’s Programme of Action emanating from the Crime Retreat

-Providing oversight reports on police station profiles in the context of Ministerial Izimbizo

-Providing oversight reports on police performance station and profiles in contribution to the implementation of the DDM

-Raising awareness on the role of CSPS in monitoring DVA implementation

-Regular community satisfaction surveys and exit polls to measure public perceptions in terms of the performance of the police

-GBV campaigns and project implementation in the build up to the 16 days of activism on violence against women and children

-Continued implementation of both the Human Capital Strategy and the ICT Strategy for organisational efficiency.

The Committee was then taken through the institutional performance per programme and outcomes, risks and mitigations – see presentation attached for details

Discussion

The Chairperson was grateful for the presentation. She asked the CSPS to prepare to receive questions. She informed Members that the Committee oversight visit for that coming Saturday had been approved. It would start early, and it would be a one-day oversight visit. Members would be called in to another oversight visit because the Committee was a little bit thin on the oversight visits.

Mr O Terblanche (DA) raised several questions. First, on the strategic focus, the presentation indicated that there was lack of trust in the police and the need to improve police service delivery. That was something important and the Secretariat would have to prioritise its role to reduce violent crimes through the promotion of more active citizenry and establishment of a neo social compact. How would the lack of trust in the police be measured? What were the previous findings and how would this trust be improved?  He asked the entity to indicate whether it had access to the SAPS litigation database to see how the SAPS were managing the litigation process. This included responses because as a responsible government, they would have to come up with something to try to reduce the number of cases in which the police were in litigation.

During the lockdown, the timeframes for the delivery of projects where hampered overall and he asked what the Secretariat was doing since there was now some degree of normality. A worrying factor was the cases of police brutality during the lockdown. What was the Secretariat doing in the short term or what could it suggest as an intervention to manage the cases?

The entity stated that the White Paper on Policing called for a repositioning and restructuring of the Secretariat into the SAPS. He needed an explanation why that would be necessary because the Secretariat was created specifically to have an independent view and an independent role.

On the localised approach to addressing crime, he supported it but did not know the intentions of the Secretariat. How would it address that?

He questioned the budget for the duties and functions of the Critical Infrastructure Council, including remuneration and expenses, coming from the budget of the Secretariat, but he saw no provision for that.

Mr H Shembeni (EFF) asked if the working relation between the SAPS and the Community Policing Forums (CPFs) was being monitored and if the CPFs were still functional. What was the so-called life span of the CPF - was it two or three years?  He noted that with the CFPs, it seemed as if most of the members were found to be the ones that were involved in crime. How many of the CPF members had been found to be involved in crime?

The panel of experts on policing and crowd control management recommended that there was a need for an overall review of the functioning of the internal and external accountability mechanisms, in order to identify how their functioning could be improved to ensure that they were operating in a mutually reinforcing manner. The review should be carried out under the auspices of CSPS and its outcomes reported to the Minister, Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), South African National Commissioner and the Portfolio Committee on Police. When would the Secretariat conduct this review?

How was the Secretariat dealing with trauma in the SAPS? Were there any programmes that were in place to remedy the situation? It seemed the police were working under stressful conditions and no one was looking after them. This could be a reason for the bad police attitude. Were there any programmes to address the issue of trauma, stress and some other things in the police or did those programmes come when police officials commit an offence or a serious crime? Were there any programmes over the course of that year that members could undergo just to refresh their minds? Some of the SAPS members were from the apartheid era and some from the new era of the democratic South Africa. These people were not working on the same line because of the influence of the training that they underwent.

How would the Secretariat bring trust to South Africans to trust in the SAPS knowing that the SAPS cannot be trusted? The uniform was being used by bogus cops that were committing crime.  There was a case in KZN where a traditional leader was abducted and was nowhere to be found and the people were in SAPS uniform. How could South Africans be urged to trust the police and how would the police services be improved?

Ms P Faku (ANC) asked if she could be given an indication of the status of the White Paper on Safety and Security and if she could be given an indication about the policing paper that would be developed in 2021-2024. What is the subject for the two research papers which would be developed in 2021/22? She also asked about which bills would be submitted in 2021/22.

Responses

Mr Rapea stated that the team would deal with the questions. In terms of the programme of district 54, the two bills had been presented the past week on Tuesday. There were presented to the Cabinet Committee for processing for public comments. These were the Protection of the Constitutional Democracy against Terrorist and Related Activities and the Firearms Control Amendment Bill. The South African Police Service Amendment Bill was published and was being finalised for input from the public. This would be submitted to the Minister to process it through Cabinet so that it could be introduced in Parliament.  

On the 2016 White Paper on the Safety and Security, SAPS had used the White Paper and was developing the integrated violent prevention strategy, which was going to be the implementation tool of that White Paper on Safety and Security. The legislation that was being developing had taken into consideration the principles and the policy decisions that were in that Paper.

To address the lack of trust, the Secretariat published the state of policing report in 2018 which identified the areas of trust in the police. The Secretariat was also going to be doing an assessment of the customer satisfaction or the community satisfaction. This would be in terms of the performance of the police as was in the medium-term strategic framework.

The monitoring and evaluation team worked closely with the SAPS to make sure they assessed their capacity to deal with civil litigation.

Regarding the impact of Covid, the country was not out of the word yet and the CSPS was trying to catch up however in January, they had to move back to work from home. The programme targets were reduced as requested by Cabinet and an addendum to the APP was presented to the Committee. Those targets assumed that things would be normal this financial year. The CSPS was ensuring it fast tracked vacancies although there was the challenge of the financial constrain due to budget cuts. The CSPS would attempt improving on filling positions to deal with the backlog. The programme presented addressed some issues that were not dealt with the previous years because of Covid. Matters to be finalised in the last quarter of that financial year would be finished in the third quarter with final deliveries in the fourth quarter. Collection of data would also take place in the third quarter. Everything would start in the first quarter as if the year had nine months instead of 12 months.  This is what the Secretariat would do to ensure backlogs were addressed in this financial year despite the Covid impact.

The matter of police brutality was the responsibility of IPID - it dealt with police conduct, discipline and issues of criminality in the police. One of the Secretariat’s targets was interacting with IPID – the target was quarterly meetings to review whether SAPS was implementing the disciplinary recommendations from IPID. In those meetings, SAPS would be invited to come and account, even if there were policy issues that are identified. For example, in the SAPS Amendment Bill, there was the introduction of a dedicated disciplinary unit within SAPS. This would contribute to ensuring there were disciplined SAPS members so that SAPS would be able to address issues of criminality effectively. Not having a strong disciplinary capacity would make people believe that they could do as they wished and get away with it. Capacity would be dedicated to deal with those issues. Monitoring and evaluation would also investigate the type of training that was offered to members- those new in the system and the retraining that needs to happen. Training would be key in ensuring that the police understood their responsibility.

On CPFs and their involvement in criminality and how many were found guilty, the Secretariat did not have statistics regarding this. He confessed that he did not hear of a report where CPF members were arrested for criminality. He asked Mr Shembeni to share the details regarding the matter for the Secretariat to follow up. The CSPS believed the relationship between the police and the CPFs was good. There were issues in the Western Cape which were being dealt with. The election of CPFs in some areas there did not go well and a CSPS official was tasked to intervene and interact with the Western Cape Department of Community Safety and the Provincial Commissioner’s office. In general, throughout the country, the CPF-police relationship was very strong. The panel of experts report had only been accepted by the Minister and released so this was being observed and the action plan had been developed.  Mr Rapea asked if the Secretariat could be given an opportunity to come and present what they were doing to make sure that the panel of experts report was implemented.

On wellbeing of the police, the police had a big unit that dealt with employee health and wellness. Police officers that engaged in traumatic situations would get counselling and debriefing. There was an M&E target in the APP that dealt with this so there would be an assessment. The CSPS could present on how well the unit was functioning and make recommendations for improvement following this assessment.  

Mr Tumelo Nkojoana, CSPS CFO, replied on litigation - in the past three financials years, three studies on litigation were conducted and two reports were shared with the Portfolio Committee. The Secretariat had access to the SAPS litigation database when it requested access from SAPS. The Secretariat would forward the third report to the Portfolio Committee.

Adv Dawn Bell, Chief Director: Legislation, CSPS, responded to Mr Terblanche’s question on the Critical Infrastructure Protection Council – the funds used from the CSPS was for the private members of the Council. There were about five private members. The funds covered their remuneration for attending meetings and other costs such as travelling. The other eight members were from government departments and would not get additional remuneration for performing this function. The funding would be taken from the baseline so the Secretariat would not be asking for additional funding.  The preliminary budget was between R250 000 and R500 000 per annum and that was for the Secretariat. For the council, it would be existing members from the Secretariat so they would be no new appointments in that regard.

On the two bills, the reason why the Secretariat only targeted two bills was because they take a long time to finalise. Additionally, the Leader of Government Business has, for the past two years, asked departments to limit and prioritise bills. Several bills progressed quite far to finalisation but the Department prioritised two - the Protection of the Constitutional Democracy against Terrorist and Related Activities and South African Police Service Amendment Bill. There was still some work required on the Firearms Bill therefore the CSPS did not aim to introduce it this year as it still needed to be published and processed. There were other Bills the CSPS was working on which were quite far progressed such as the IPID bill, the DNA bill and the Secondhand Goods Bill. The Minister would be briefed on the DNA Bill on 17 May 2021. This would enable the promotion of the Bill through the JCPS cluster for introduction later in the year. The hope is to get the DNA Bill introduced this year.

Ms Bilkis Omar, Chief Director: Policy Development and Research, CSPS, responded to the question of repositioning the Civilian Secretariat into the SAPS. The assumption was not accurate - the White Paper proposed that the Civilian Secretariat be repositioned into the Department of Police. The recommendation proposal emanated from the 1996 National Crime Prevention Strategy in the 1998 White Paper on Safety and Security. The intention at the time was that the Civilian Secretariat be the Department of Police to give it prominence. The proposal was to manage the budget of the SAPS etc. The proposal was retained in the 2016 White Paper on Policing to address the issues and incorporate them into the business case working with the Department of Public Service and Administration (dpsa) to reposition the Civilian Secretariat. The process had already started but due to the lockdown it had stopped.

On the status of the White Paper, the project was started. The CSPS sent letters to the MECS through the Minister and the National Commissioner requiring them to report on the National Policing Policy. Some of the reports from the provinces were received

Regarding research projects for 2021, in the previous year, the CSPS started a research project on the analysis on the SAPS detectives’ murder dockets. The intention then was to determine if the SAPS was investigating murders rigorously and if the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had sufficient information to secure prosecution with the dockets that they were receiving from the SAPS. The research also looked at the whether the NPA was only pursuing cases with adequate evidence to secure prosecution and looked at why the conviction rates were so low. The project started the previous year and the literature review had been done that year. The project would continue. It would be a joint project with the provincial secretariats. They were doing the field work and the actual analysis of the dockets. The second project was on the recruitment process of SAPS - the project emanated from two years prior. The training project that looked at the SAPS basic training project was finalised. It was presented to Lt. Gen. Zulu, from the SAPS, who indicated that they had to look at the value chain in the SAPS, from recruitment to the whole process and challenges which impact the SAPS value chain in the aim of a professional police service.

The Chairperson stated that the Civilian Secretariat was one of the most important units in SAPS. She did not understand why its presence was not felt. People knew about IPID but the CSPS’ communication strategy was not very good. All the complaints that the Secretariat was supposed to receive about the training, enlisting, appointments etc, were received by Members of the Committee. She was very surprised that Ms Majozi was not mentioning that because Ms Majozi had sent many emails about it as well as Mr Shembeni. The Committee was going to call the Secretariat in for a full session with the Committee since the meeting today was for the APP. The Committee had two years left; the Committee made a commitment to the public to amend the IPID Act, the Firearms Act and the SAPS Act - those were the three priorities. She thanked the Deputy Minister for taking the two amendment bills to the Cabinet committee, but the Committee was concerned that they only had two years left to deal with this legislation. She emphasised that the presence of the Civilian Secretariat in the Western Cape, in the CPFs and the neighborhood watches was not felt. She exclaimed that the Civilian Secretariat was missing in action because of all the complaints. The Committee staff could attest to how many complaints the Chairperson had received from the Western Cape daily rather the same as it did on the central firearm registry. It was the same problems - the Committee had received emails that were meant for the Secretariat. The Chairperson stated that the Committee was going to place the Civilian Secretariat under a magnifying glass. They had been hiding somewhere and the Committee had not felt their presence. Their communication was not up to stretch.  

While she agreed with Adv Bell, the Secretariat was also not prioritising what the Committee decided on. The Portfolio Committee was supposed to take the Acts through Parliament however the CSPS did not prioritise what the Committee asked for. The CSPS should have considered what the Committee asked be prioritised. It would take the Committee at least eight weeks to consider a bill. They were pushing it tightly because they saw what happened with the Justice bills on gender-based violence. For the police bills, they had to go out on public road shows, especially with the SAPS Amendment Bill because this was the first-time that the SAPS Act was going to be amended after the new Constitution. The SAPS Act was written under the old Constitution so there would have to be consultation with different focus groups and political parties. The public consultation for the SAPS Act was not going to be simple and it would not be fast tracked.  Everybody had an interest in that SAPS Act.

She told the Deputy Minister that the Committee was going to seriously place the Civilian Secretariat under scrutiny and a magnifying glass. He reiterated that the Committee had two years left and had no intention of leaving work for the seventh administration. When the Committee started, it was informed of what work was outstanding from the previous administration and now it seemed the Committee was going down the same route. This would be discussed in the Committee’s upcoming strategic planning workshop.

The Chairperson was not impressed. The Committee was under the impression, using the CSPS quarterly reports, that they were working on the SAPS Amendment Bill, the Firearms Control Bill and the IPID Amendment Bill. She did not see IPID happening in the lifetime of the Committee.

Mr Terblanche echoed the Chairperson’s sentiments. He stated that he too was not very impressed with some of the responses. Regarding the lack of trust in the police, he was concerned that while this was more than a feeling, there did not seem to be a measurement for this – the CSPS could not work off of that basis. There must be definite and tangible targets and proof. On the Secretariat moving back to the SAPS, he demanded an explanation. It took a lot of effort to get the CSPS out of SAPS so why did it want to go back again? He also did not understand what was meant by the CSPS being part of the Department of Police – was it not already part of the Department?

Another concern was about the office of the DPCI Judge, which was incorporated in the CSPS programme but had no measurable performance indicators despite having a budget allocation. How could the office of the Judge work with a budget but no performance indicators?

Mr Terblanche was concerned by the main performance indicators. There were eight of them; “number of police station oversight report approved by the Secretariat” - the target decreases from four reports to three in 2021/2022. How could the CSPS only visit three police stations? The most important target haunting the Committee was the number of reports on the functioning of the forensic DNA database assessment which remained unchanged at four reports. He exclaimed that he understood why things were going the direction they were in the Secretariat. The target outputs were not acceptable.

Mr K Maphatsoe (ANC) also noted that the funds allocated to the DPCI Judge was R6.8m but there were no performance indicators for the office. He spoke to the priorities of processing legislation – it was important that the Secretariat also prioritised what the Committee did regarding legislation. It was on record what the Committee wanted prioritised and what the CSPS promised would be prioritised – the Committee wants to ensure this is achieved.

The Chairperson said the Committee would call for a meeting with the Secretariat

Mr Shembeni stated that looking at the mandate of the Civilian Secretariat, the Secretariat had to exercise oversight over the SAPS to ensure a transformed and accountable police service which reflected the values of the developmental state. Looking at the SAPS management, he felt that the Secretariat was not doing enough in the monitoring of the SAPS.  He had previously asked the CSPS about its involvement in the appointment of SAPS senior management and the CSPS said it would review its involvement to ensure it became part of the process. The biggest question of the past years has been the promotion of lower levels from one to level nine. Recruitment in which levels were most needed? He would assume it would be the constables, sergeants, warrant officers working at the ground level doing the patrols, the investigations etc. He also wanted to know what the budget was for paying generals in each province. He had looked at Gauteng to see how many generals there were and how much the budget was when it came to compensation of employees. How many constables were there? How many were used? He asked because there were many cases requiring attention. He asked how many cases were registered against senior management and if the CSPS was involved in those cases. What progress was being made in investigating these cases? Some cases dated back to 2015 against senior management.  There were members who were inappropriately promoted and there were cases where a member that was supposed to be demoted was not – generally corruption in the SAPS. What was the Secretariat doing regarding such matters to ensure it was trusted? He said there were criminals that the Secretariat had to deal with – the CSPS must attend to this by looking at the cases and following up with IPID.

Responses

Adv Bell replied that the state of policing report showed that in 2011, there was increased trust in the police where it was at 49% however looking at the studies done by Afro Barometer in 2015, trust in the police was at 45%. The victims of crime studies showed that from 2011, trust in the police had declined from 64% to 57% therefore trust in the police had declined over the years. After producing research reports, the CSPS would hand the findings over to the SAPS. SAPS would also be provided with recommendations on how to improve trust. One criticism was that SAPS did not measure itself using the level of trust – there was no “trust” performance indicator and the Secretariat recommended this be added.

Mr Nkojoana said the CSPS had conducted surveys from the M&E side as a way of measuring dissatisfaction. He referred to the one done in 2018/19. He indicated that in this financial year there would be another perception survey. The last one looked at the satisfaction levels of the people who were reporting cases to SAPS. The focus was on the detective services, to check whether the public was satisfied with the way the case was handled and communication. The report can be shared with the Committee. The result showed that 51.61% of complainants were satisfied with the quality of service provided by the detectives while 48.39 % were not happy. The main issues were poor investigation and lack of communication specifically when it comes to feedback. Some said they were not treated in a professional manner. The next study was going to focus on the visibility of the SAPS and the issues of the perception of safety by citizens. If citizens were not happy with the work that the SAPS was doing, it would create a feeling of not being safe.

Regarding visits to police stations, the CSPS would have four or three reports. The reports were not an indication of the number police stations visited in a year. As an example, the focus was going to be on the top 30 high crime police stations for the first indicator. That was just for the national office but the provincial secretariats would, at the same time, work with closely with 25% of the police stations for the general performance. On gender-based violence, the focus would be on the top 30 stations and the Secretariat would be doing the 25%. Each indicator had elements that required the Secretariat to go visit the police stations. In a year, a number of stations would be visited – no less than 100. There would also be a census of police stations.

Adv Bell responded on the issue of the bills stating that the CSPS was requested, by the Leader of Government Business, to prioritise bills mindful of the Covid impact. As such, the focus was on the bills which were already far advanced – this decision was not to disrespect the Committee.  The Secretariat was far advanced with the SAPS, DNA, POCDA and the Firearms Bills.

The Chairperson said she was going to back to the Leader of Government Business. She told the Committee staff to take note and write a letter to the Leader of Government Business. The Leader of Government Business would be the same person calling to ask on the progress on the bills which the Committees had prioritised. She agreed with the Deputy Minister that the Secretariat had to return to the Committee with the SAPS management.

Deputy Minister Mathale said he would note the issues raised. As the CSPS and the leadership of SAPS, they would go back to the drawing board. He did not think it was going to be appropriate to do as Adv Bell suggested. The Committee was saying that it has legislative priorities and what the Secretariat presented did not take this into consideration. Therefore they were to go back to the drawing board.  That was not to say that the Chairperson was not to communicate with the Leader of Government Business but there was another route to take considering the issues raised. This was the view he was putting forward to the Secretary, Mr Rapea.

Adv Bell agreed with what the Deputy Minister said to go back to the drawing board and see how deal with the issues that were raised.

Mr Rapea dealt with the outstanding issues that had not been dealt with. On the Secretariat moving back to the SAPS, what the White Paper on Policing said was that the Secretariat Police Service should be departmental police just like the Secretary of Defense was the accounting officer that dealt with certain aspects. There was a structure that had been suggested in the White Paper on Policing which talked about the roles they were to play and that required resources. There was a structure that had been designed to deal with that but if those resources were not there, the Department would not be dealt with as the White Paper envisaged.  It was not about taking the Civilian Secretariat back to SAPS because that was unconstitutional. 

On the DPCI Judge having no targets, the DPCI Judge was an independent body that was responsible for its own APP and accounting to Parliament. The CSPS would love to reflect on the budget and what was being done but there was an ongoing sensitive court case. Based on this, the CSPS did not want to touch on what the Judge does. The Judge was responsible for accounting to the Portfolio Committee on what he was going to do with the funding allocated by Parliament.

On the Secretariat not being visible, he had noted that however there was a communication strategy developed. It was correct to say that the Secretariat were the foot soldiers of the Committee. In the strategic workshop, the CSPS would share more regarding this. the Secretariat agreed to fast tracking the work.

The Chairperson asked Mr Rapea to forward responses to any outstanding questions in writing because time had run out. The CSPS would be called back for a session with the National Commissioner and provincial commissioners. She thanked the Deputy Minister, Mr Rapea and colleagues. She encouraged it to correct what was to be corrected. She encouraged a social contact between the Committee and the Secretariat.

PSIRA APP 2021/22

Dr Leah Mofomme, PSIRA Board chairperson, gave her opening remarks and introduced all the Council members present.

Mr Manabela (Sam) Chauke, PSIRA CEO, also introduced his colleagues and the apologies from his team. He introduced Mr Stefan Badenhorst, PSIRA Chief Operating Officer, who was to lead the presentation followed by the CFO who would be giving us an overview of the budget.

Mr Badenhorst, took the Committee through the amendments to the strategic plan, outcome indicators and give-year targets. The Committee was also taken through the annual performance plan per programme and key risks and mitigation.

PSIRA’s main policy focus areas remained:

-Review funding model (Guarantee fund and Levies Act).

-Implementation of organisational oedesign to ensure adequate capacity to support mandate.

-Continuous review of training standards for the private security industry.

-Capacitating the Law Enforcement Programme: to reduce inspector/security business ratio from 1 : 127 to 1 : 120.

-Strengthening Corporate Governance: Industry Sector Committees. 

-Transformation of the Private Security Industry.

-Continuous awareness of PSiRA brand.

-Development and Implementation of regulations.

-Digitalisation of services.

-Decentralisation of PSiRA services.

-Research and Development.

Turning to the budget, budget growth over the MTEF period is estimated at an average of 10% which is mainly collected through annual fees and administration fees. Future estimates and plans indicates a higher growth in expenditure vs. revenue (budget) with the existing funding model hence the need for Levies funding model:

-Employee costs - 10% increase:  The budget is based on current funded positions. The Authority performed an OD exercise to ensure alignment with its mandate.

-Property Rental Expenses - 6% increase:  The increase is as a result of annual increases on the current rental contracts

-Consulting Costs - 74% increase: Automation of Business Processes,   research and the review and upgrade of training standards, i.e. Digital platform for Security Service Providers applications for registration, ID cards, online quality assurance of training and renewal of certificates.

The Authority intends to acquire an online system as part of the Digital Transformation Strategy. Other capital acquisitions include replacement of computers and other assets that are beyond their useful life.

[see presentation attached for further details]

Discussion

The Chairperson commended the presentation and encouraged PSIRA to get a clean audit again. She highlighted that there would not be many questions for PSIRA.

Mr Terblanche agreed with the Chairperson on the questions and the good presentation. He commented that the improved programme targets were done well.  He was happy that people could do self-assessments. He asked what percentage has been implemented.

Mr Shembeni asked how often the entity visited the security guard on site to get information relating to the rates, working hours etc. He had received a complaint about a company that deducted money from the workers. It did not submit that money into the pension fund for them at an early stage and the company’s contract was expired in December the previous year. The company had deducted money from the members starting from June and only started to submit the pension fund in September. A large proportion of the public were unaware of the regulatory authority for the private security industry. Was it possible that the public awareness campaigns done by PSIRA were not effective? What was the target audience? Could the industry indicate whether the training of inspectors had improved? Were inspectors trained in the areas of cybercrime?

Mr Maphatsoe echoed sentiments that PSiRA had been consistently achieving unqualified reports from the Auditor-General and encouraged it not to lower its cards. He asked labour foreigners being in employed most security companies and being paid low. He did not mind because they were illegal and was concerned it could compromise security.  He was happy that the chairperson of the Council was listening as this would be prioritised during oversight. He could submit names of some these companies who were taking work that was supposed to go to South Africans, where the unemployment rate was very high. He had observed that many had been deported because their IDs were fake. These were the matters to be checked during oversight visits to these companies at random. Many young people and military veterans were available to work as security guards – this would be especially so for strategic areas and national key points. There was high risk if foreigners were employed in these areas so inspectors should be mindful of this. Most people did not take security as seriously and did not know the importance of PSIRA.

Ms Faku asked, given that the budget that had been increased, if there was an increase in the number of professional and consulting services and if so, why. There were many unemployed people so why would consulting services be used instead of creating employment? There was also an increased amount spent on the travelling. Given the lock down restrictions, why was there such an increase in the budget? There was a decrease in inspections to be done – did PSIRA believe the self-assessment was a sufficient way to conduct these assessments?

Ms Faku relayed that she would normally go to court to follow up on gender-based violence cases and the security at the East London courts treat people badly.  Therefore, allowing these security companies to do their self-assessments was not enough.  She did not believe that the number could be decreased by self-assessment because people would only give themselves good results. She also believed that regulation of firearms by the private security would be a stretch. The regulation was not straightened, and it is something to investigate. She highlighted there was a lot of complaining concerning the dysfunctionality of the central firearms registry and how was that affecting PSiRA in inspecting and using of firearms.

Ms N Peacock (ANC) asked why consultancy fees was one of the top five expenditures.  How would PSIRA be capacitated if relied on outside consultants? Having the capacity would assist in the reduction of this expenditure. The same applied to the fingerprint costs. The turnaround strategy would have to look for in-house capacitation regarding fingerprint costs as well as consultancy. She appreciated the commitment by the entity and appreciated the fact that it received clean audits and motivated it to start looking at cutting costs to work effectively.

Responses

Mr Badenhorst said on implementing self-assessment, it was implemented in the prior year. This is an important tool to ensure industry regulation in view of the impact of Covid19. The self-assessment was not just a questionnaire made and responded to by the businesses and then submitted to PSIRA. It was a self-verification on compliance, but the businesses were required to submit everything they reported with supporting evidence for evaluation by PSIRA. There was a lot of information on the databases as far as compliance was concerned hence the information would be matched and verified against this when assessing compliance. For instance, if a business had a question asking if they registered to the private security sector programme fund, they would not just be able to tick yes but must also submit a letter of good standing from the programme fund. There were checks and balances in play as far as the self-assessment was concerned. If there were irregularities, it would become an enforcement inspection and investigation.  Those places that fail to submit trigger inspection by officers as well. A lot more inspection was being done than merely sending inspectors to businesses in reaction to complaints. The regulatory scope was increasing and with the self-assessment that was supported in line with the law and enforcement strategy.

Regarding site visits, there were also inspection programmes and output indicators spoke to the number of inspections done by inspectors at the sites. It was brought in quite a number of years ago because it was realised that just visiting a business there was a lot of false information and false books so checking the site was imperative. The officers would ask about employment information, about minimum payments, rates, hours and leave. All those things were addressed during the onsite inspection. If something was irregular it triggered investigation of the business.

Regarding public awareness, PSIRA agreed it never did enough and needed to do more in that area.  The operational plan supported the annual performance plans and some targets. Security industry businesses were a part of that, but consumers of security were part of that target audience. The general public was part of that audience. PSIRA had different platforms on how to communicate its services as well. PSIRA was very active on social media, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Information is continually posted there and there was quite a following on those platforms to educate the industry.

During the previous two years, inspectors had a training programme on security dog use in the industry. Cyber security was something that PSIRA would look into as well as firearm competencies in respect of all the different types of firearms to ensure the Industry was up tp date regarding the conduction of inspections of firearms.

On the use of foreign nationals, it was highlighted that a person was supposed to be a South Africa citizen. It also provided that if citizen had a permanent resident status in the country, they are eligible to operate. There were scenarios where foreigners were legally registered with PSIRA in terms of the registration. This was also form inspection programmes at sites and a lot of information had been posted on acting against businesses that employed unregistered foreigners. There were forums looking into security businesses not registered and owned by foreigners – government was advised on compliance. In SAPS, there was a sector called the government security regulator and the government security council which PSIRA was part of. The forum was responsible for implementation of the National Key Points Act for the strategic installations. This gave extra assurance regarding strategic installation security service providers and ensuring they were legally registered with PSIRA.

Regarding the regulation of firearms in the industry, that was a continuance process. Not everything was rosy regarding cooperation with the central firearms registry. Generally, there was a good relationship with SAPS but there was still some work to be done. For instance, PSIRA would request access to the central firearm registry database. There was some work to be done because there was no clear distinction when licenses were issued to businesses versus an instance of a veterinarian. When firearm inspections were conducted, the reports would be compiled and submitted to the central firearm registry so that they could take note of any challenges identified and noncompliance so they would act as well.  When security business would apply for firearms, the central firearm registry would notify PSIRA first and PSIRA would then report on whether the business was compliant. There were definite interactions with the central firearms registry before licenses were approved.

The PSIRA Chief Financial Officer dealt with the questions relating to consultant fee increases. A gap analysis would be conducted before getting a consultant and the PSIRA resources would be looked at. The consultants were used for online automation of services. PSIRA looked inside, and it did not have the capacity. The other key driver in consultancy fees was the training curriculum that had to be revised. But before consultants were procured, there was an assessment that was approved to ensure PSIRA did not have the capacity.

Regarding cost containment on fingerprints, PSIRA was constantly looking at this to ensure there was a cost saving. PSIRA was looking to explore methods of ensuring that fingerprints cost was reduced to an extent. However, PSIRA required fingerprints to verify the registration revenue.

Mr Chauke added that on cybercrime training, PSIRA was not doing any training on that, but they had identified a need for this in the industry. They would be working together with the MICC which was responsible for information technology. They had had a discussion with the CEO and a draft memorandum of understanding was developed and some qualification around cybercrime that would be bringing awareness to the industry. PSIRA would follow up on this and report on it soon.

Deputy Minister Mathale appreciated the opportunity granted by the Committee to account to it on what PSIRA was doing. The engagements with the Committee were enriching as usual. They were grateful that they could continue to interact in a manner that contributed towards them doing their work much better and smarter.

The Chairperson thanked PSIRA and encouraged it to keep up the good work.

The meeting was adjourned.  

 

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