Chairperson, Minister, Deputy Minister, comrades and hon members, the ANC is committed to intensifying the fight against crime and working together with all communities in our country to rid South Africa of the criminals.
One act of crime is one too many; one murder is one too many. The ANC's 2009 election manifesto stated, and I quote:
Fighting the causes of crime will be a priority of the ANC government in the next five years and there is a need to overhaul the criminal justice system to ensure that the levels of crime are drastically reduced.
In its January 8 Statement this year the ANC said, and I quote:
The ANC is firmly committed to fighting crime and corruption. There is an urgent need to overhaul the criminal justice system to ensure that the levels of crime are drastically reduced.
The President said in his state of the nation address, and I quote:
We are working hard to ensure that everyone in South Africa feels safe and is safe.
This provides clear indications that our government, the ANC-led government, is committed to defeating the scourge of crime in our country. The budget of R52,5 billion for 2010-11 translates these commitments into action. Programme 1 in the police budget deals with administration, which includes areas such as information technology, capital works, property management, training of personnel and vehicle fleets. The secretariat also falls within this programme.
The use of information technology is becoming increasingly important in the fight against crime. It is not simply about printers, printer cartridges, or laptops, it is more about how we can use IT to ensure that the SAPS becomes more efficient and effective in its efforts and fight against crime.
I understand that the SAPS has a number of service-level agreements that they have entered into. From what I understand, this runs into considerable sums of money which are paid on a monthly basis. If this is correct, we need to ask the SAPS to look to see whether we are getting value for money from these service fees which we are paying.
One of the areas in which technology is not helping the SAPS to be efficient and effective, is that of telephones. Often we hear of police stations where telephone lines are not working. In my own constituency I have two police stations which regularly do not have phones that are working.
We were also advised that the phone bills of the SAPS run into tens of millions of rands per month. The question we need to ask is: Are we using the best technology available? We also need to ask the SAPS to come to the committee and tell us what they can do to solve this. It is very frustrating for people when they try and phone the police and they simple cannot get through because the phones are not working.
We also need to find out what can be done to bring down the amount that we are spending on telephone calls. One does not say the calls are not necessary, but we need to see how to bring the costs down. At the same time, we must acknowledge that significant progress has been made in the implementation of the use of information technology.
An example of this is the e-docket scanning system which is used to electronically scan dockets and all related documentation. This plays an important part because it ensures that dockets can't get lost. It ensures that dockets can get tracked right through from start to end. This is an important issue. The Minister raised it in his speech today with regard to the progress that has been made. We look forward to continued progress in the roll-out of this area.
One of the issues that is of concern is that I have been hearing, more recently, that there are some personnel in the SAPS who try and bypass this system. They only capture and scan the docket after the case has been completed. This is unacceptable.
It is important that when we introduce new technology all personnel at police station level are informed of and trained on the benefits and the need to use such technology. Part of the training of recruits, when they go to training colleges, should include not just computer literacy but also how to use the various IT systems which the SAPS uses. Perhaps when performance appraisals are done, something which should be included in the appraisals should be whether the police officer is using the IT system which he or she should use.
Recently we had the opportunity of visiting the provincial operation centre in the war room in the Western Cape. These facilities were put in place two years ago under the direction of the ANC-led government. We need to understand that. Whilst we were there we were able to watch the movement of police vehicles on the screen using the vehicle tracking system.
Those vehicles were transporting some of our colleagues. The system had to tell us where the vehicle was and indicated the speed at which the vehicle was travelling. One of the vehicles was speeding; it was travelling in excess of the speed limit.
We are concerned. This automatic vehicle location, AVL, tracking system has been rolled out across the country with the necessary speed. We need to ask that this be dealt with urgently and let's get it rolled out. It is important that we are able to control and monitor our fleets. We need to know where our fleets are. It will help our 10111 call centres become far more efficient and effective. They will be able to identify where our vehicles are and where they can be deployed to.
Of concern is that we do hear that there are some SAPS members who try to disconnect the system in their vehicles. They do this so that they cannot be tracked and nobody knows where they are. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable and we need to condemn it in the strongest terms possible. If police officials are caught doing this we want to ask and request that strong disciplinary action be taken against them.
We found the war room to be extremely impressive. I was delighted to read in the strategic plan for 2010-14 that it actually states that there is an urgent need for these war rooms to be rolled out. Well, we are now asking that we be told and given a plan of how this is going to be rolled out and when we can expect these war rooms to head the various provinces.
The strategic plan also gives us a clear plan of the number of police stations that will be built or upgraded. In this coming financial year, 42 police stations will be built or renovated. In the following years, however - which is a point of concern - this number reduces to 29, then to 18, then goes up slightly to 31 and then down to 24. Given the number of police stations that we have and the large number which are in need of repair, we have to ask whether this infrastructure plan is sufficient. Whilst we welcome the information which we have been given - having the names of the police stations is helpful to us - we do need to ask whether this is sufficient and whether we couldn't do more to speed up the renovation of police stations and the building of new police stations.
We are going to receive a briefing shortly and hopefully we will get clarity on some of these matters. Still on this point, perhaps what we should be considering is a uniform standard for our police stations as we either build new or renovate existing police stations. When I talk about a uniform standard, I am talking about appearance, structure, decor and the services which need to form a basic police station. I really think it is time that we have this: a standard design so that we know exactly what a police station should look like.
We must acknowledge that we have inherited an infrastructure - hon Groenewald, whether you like it or not - that was built pre-1994, and many of those building are not appropriate for police stations. There was no uniformity whatsoever. We don't expect things overnight, but we do say that as we build new ones, as we renovate our buildings, let us come up with a uniform standard. [Interjections.] It took you 300 years!
Moving on, I just want to say that personnel are the most important asset of the SAPS. These men and women protect us and they bring to book the many perpetrators who seek to undermine our democracy. We, therefore, have to ensure that we look after them and - to hon Kohler-Barnard - that we respect them.
We also need to ensure that they are properly trained for the work that they need to do. We have to ask whether the current training needs meet the requirements of producing well-trained policemen and women. Is the curriculum currently used up to date? When last was the curriculum reviewed? These are answers that we need.
We come across instances where newly trained personnel are deployed to police stations, but there are no training officers on site. This is another area which needs to be tightened up. We need to ensure compliance in this regard.
The question that we have to ask is whether the correct people are being placed in the correct positions. If a person is trained as a police officer it does not necessarily mean that he will be a good detective. We need to ensure that personnel are correctly deployed in positions in which they will be most effective.
The recent launch of the Government Employees Medical Scheme, Gems, to assist in improving the fitness levels of personnel, is welcomed. We hope that this initiative will be utilised by all personnel across all ranks, from the top to the bottom and from the bottom to the top.
I would like to congratulate at this stage the 126 sportsmen and women from the SAPS who participated in the recent Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Co-operation Organisation Games, which was held in Malawi in December. They brought back 60 gold, seven silver and six bronze medals. We need to congratulate them on this.
Far too often we hear of police members who take the lives of their loved ones before taking their own lives. I raised this point last year. Many of our police members are faced with having to deal with violent crime scenes and many other incidents which affect them. In such instances trauma counselling should be obligatory before they are allowed to go back on patrol. More emphasis needs to be placed on the effectiveness and resourcing of the employee health and wellness component.
The vehicle fleet of the SAPS is a vital component of the resources which the police need to be able to operate efficiently and effectively. Currently a formula is used where one vehicle is allocated to 4,5 personnel. We have been assured that this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. We are generally told that there are sufficient vehicles, but when you go down to police station level you find a different story.
Whilst we acknowledge that there has been progress in the provision of vehicles, we think that there needs to be better management of the fleet, overall. Those at head office level, who are responsible for deploying and allocating vehicles, need to have a far better understanding of the requirements at the station level.
According to the Financial Mail of 19 March this year, 8 000 firearms were unaccounted for in the SAPS and over 100 retired officers had yet to return their SAPS pistols. This begs the question whether there is proper control of the assets; whether we actually know where our assets are. The same applies to bulletproof vests. We are told that recruits, when they have finished training, are issued with bulletproof vests, but often nobody wears them. Here we would like to point out and make our request that members of the SAPS need to wear their bulletproof vests. If they don't have one, they should not go out on patrol. Too often we hear of members of the SAPS who have been killed because they haven't been wearing their bulletproof vests.
I would also like to say that we are extremely happy with the functioning of the secretariat and the progress ... [Time expired.]