Chairperson, Minister, Deputy Minister and portfolio committee chairperson, the last year has been extremely busy for the Portfolio Committee on Police and a lot of credit can and must go to our chairperson, Sindi Chikunga, who has taken her responsibility seriously and genuinely, which is not seen by the DA in the vast majority of the portfolio committees.
Some progress has been made over the last year and some credit must also go to the Minister. In my speech last year, I expounded on the total inefficiency of the police secretariat, which was wasting huge amounts of money on large numbers of staff who were doing very little.
The Minister's wise appointment of Ms Jennifer Irish-Qhobosheane as the Secretary of Police has resulted in the complete turnaround of the police secretariat. Her efficiency and accessibility has been noticed and appreciated by all of us. Unfortunately that is all the praise I am going to give the Ministry and the department this year.
Minister, there is another dysfunctional department in the SAPS that needs your urgent attention, namely the National Inspectorate. You need to find another Jenni, and quickly. According to a draft national instruction issued in 2004, the National Inspectorate is supposed to conduct inspections and evaluations at police stations across the country, to ensure that they are doing what they are supposed to do. We all know that there are many stations that are not doing what they are supposed to do.
After a closer look at the inspectorate, we can see why they are allowed to get away with it. The Institute for Security Studies has conducted research into the inspectorate. As has become customary in the SAPS, there are limited statistics available. Nevertheless, according to the statistics that could be found, the National Inspectorate in the early to mid 2000s conducted approximately 280 inspections and evaluations per year. By mid to late 2009, only one had been done for the entire year!
According to the Policy Advisory Council's report for 2007-08, sufficient appropriate capacity to manage and do inspections properly does not seem to exist at any level. This is hardly surprising when one looks at the head of the department, Mr Rasegatla, who was appointed - or perhaps more correctly, redeployed - to head the inspectorate in 2005.
This is the same person who headed the police secretariat and in that capacity was the subject of a 2003 Public Service Commission report, which recommended that he should be removed from his post for gross incompetence and failure to perform his duties.
Later in 2005, the then chairperson of the portfolio committee, hon Maggie Sotyu, had to interrupt his presentation because his reports were confusing and incoherent. She then confirmed that she had discussed the matter with Minister Nqakula and he agreed that an intervention was necessary. Minister, no evidence of any intervention can be found. Mr Rasegatla is still there, drawing the salary of a divisional commissioner and quite literally falling asleep at our strategic planning meetings in Pretoria in January. Minister, this man needs to be removed from this post too, and boarded if he has an illness - or otherwise just be fired, plain and simple.
Another issue I raised last year was the Minister's promise to reintroduce the FCS units. A year later the FCS units are still nothing but a promise. The Minister has now said that they will be reconstituted by June 2010 and fully resourced by March 2011, which we most certainly welcome. However, what was disbanded in a matter of days has taken over a year and a half from being considered to becoming fully functional.
In that period of 21 months, 304 800 children will have been raped and 1 905 murdered. Does this show a genuine commitment to the fight against crime with regard to women and children? I have said it before, and I will say it again until something is done about it, or until the DA takes over the national government and sorts it out.
The SAPS is not serious about the fight against crimes against women and children. I suppose one can hardly blame them when their top leadership shows such disregard for it. The national commissioner has still not complied with the legislative obligation to table reports to Parliament on the SAPS's compliance with the Domestic Violence Act. Despite writing to the Minister about it late last year, I am still awaiting a response. The victim empowerment programme was launched 12 years ago, yet a third of all police stations in the country still do not have victim support rooms. This is a travesty of justice and I have already written to the Public Protector asking for an investigation into why the SAPS is taking so long to comply with its obligations, which include protecting victims of crime.
Now we are told it will take another five years to implement fully. This is unacceptable. Why is the budget not providing for the speedy implementation of this programme?
The SAPS's response to human trafficking has been equally abysmal. It is quite clear that they have not been proactive despite reports of trafficking for many years, and that the only small steps that have been taken are as a result of pressure surrounding the World Cup. When a Minister answers a parliamentary question - one of the few questions he answered - by saying that the Hawks are dealing with it, and there is not even a contact telephone number for the Hawks on the website, that shows a clear lack of concern about the issue. It is impossible to find out who in the Hawks is dealing with it. By phoning any of the numbers we have been given, we have tried. We have to read in a private advertisement in a newspaper that there is, in fact, a telephone number one can phone to report human trafficking.
The Minister has not once referred to this in any replies to questions on the subject. One has to assume that he is not aware of it - a further indication that he is not taking this issue seriously.
It is an indictment on the police in this country when journalists have to expose how easy it is to bribe a police officer at the Lebombo border. Minister, have you followed up on that? Thank goodness for the private organisations that are taking these on, but the fact is, this is a crime we are dealing with and the police should be leading the fight.
Another area of crime that has been sorely neglected by the SAPS is that of cybercrime. Every day criminals are proactively devising new schemes to rid us of our hard-earned cash and commit various other crimes using modern technology. I have never in my life won so many lotteries as I have in the past few months! If I were to believe these e-mails, I would never have to work again.
According to a report presented on cybersecurity at Cte d'Ivoire in 2008, cybercrime in Africa is growing faster than on any other continent. This year, probably in the light of the increased focus on South Africa because of the World Cup, it has increased even more. Where are the police to be found in all of this? Well, we aren't really sure given that the Minister's reply to my question about the location of cybercrime units was: Due to the covert nature of the bulk of the responsibilities conducted by this section, the SAPS is not in a position to disclose further details with regard to the locality or personal details of these members.
Minister, with all due respect, all crime operations are covert. This is like telling me you cannot give me the location of my local police station. I suspect it has more to do with the fact that there is really no cybercrime unit in the SAPS to speak of, and that if it were not for the banks and other private business being proactive, this country would be in an even worse situation than we are at present.
I referred two phishing e-mails to the Bellville commercial crime unit about 3 months ago. I haven't received any response at all, or even an acknowledgement. The SAPS needs to wake up and move into the 21st century; the criminals have done so long ago.
Finally, Mr Mthethwa is quite correct that any move towards a single Police Service will be a protracted process. We are very aware that the DA's success in Cape Town, with the Metro police, is embarrassing to the ANC. We will not stand by and watch while you destroy it. Thank you. [Applause.]