Police Minister General Bheki Cele on Friday urged the South African Police Service (SAPS) to introduce accountability at police stations across the country, while also calling on the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) to help deal with police officers who “fail the organisation and ultimately fail the nation”.

Cele was speaking in Pretoria where he released the quarterly crime statistics, which showed increased levels of contact crimes during the fourth quarter of the 2021/22 financial year, from January 1 to the end of March 2022.

In the three months of reporting, a 22.2% increase in murder was recorded, with 1 107 more people killed in South Africa between January and March compared to the same period in 2021.

Of the 6 083 people killed in the country, 898 were women and 306 where children under the age of 17. Alarmingly, the murder of children recorded a 37.2% increase in the period of reporting. A total of 2 268 people were murdered in public places.

All sexual offences recorded a 13.7% increase with contact sexual offences recording the only decrease in this crime category. 10 818 people were raped in South Africa during this quarter.

Murder and assault with grievous bodily harm of children under the age of 17 also recorded sharp increases. However, the number of attempted murder cases of children has declined by 6.8%.

Cele admitted that the first three months of this year were violent, brutal and unsafe for many South Africans.

“While we know and appreciate that the current socioeconomy has directly impacted on crime levels, the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment increasingly encouraged opportunistic criminal behaviour,” he said.

Despite the alarming statistics, Cele said police had made some gains and intercepted criminal syndicates involved in extortion, kidnapping and cash-in-transit heists and drugs, however, he admitted that their collective actions had not been good enough.

STATION ACCOUNTABILITY PLAN

He said the SAPS could no longer afford to pay lip service and announced the adoption of the Station Accountability Plan.

“This means accountability will start from the bottom (at stations) and escalate right up to the very top. The Station Accountability Plan will fully work, if all station commanders are empowered and supported through your management. The Station Accountability Plan rests on station commanders,” he explained.

Cele said the immediate implementation of the Station Accountability Plan, especially at the top-30 high crime stations, was expected, adding that the sharp focus on stations would mean all station commanders were expected to closely monitor their unique crime situations. 

Every two weeks, commanders must evaluate and put in place relevant operational plans to curb crime. Station commanders must have in place monitoring mechanisms to ring the alarm in time and also have clear targets of crime reduction and eradication within timeframes that must be met.

“There will be expeditious processes, if and when the set targets are not achieved. Station Commanders will be replaced if they are not fit for purpose. This Station Accountability Plan means it will not be tolerated for police stations to keep occupying the same spots as high crime stations. There simply can’t be stations that don’t perform and it is business as usual. This stops here and now,” he stated.

Cele further said that the vetting and monitoring of police had to be speedily undertaken, “and if this means half of this organization [SAPS] must go, then so be it”.

Police members can’t be part of the planning of crime and fighting crime, he said.

“The SAPS cannot be a haven for criminals disguised as officers of the law. Such behaviour puts policing on the back foot and further erodes the trust between communities and police,” he said.