Police chief Sitole says it is premature to resign over spy equipment saga

National police commissioner Khehla Sitole insisted in parliament on Thursday that it was premature to suggest that he and two of his deputies resign over the controversial procurement of spy equipment.

At a meeting of parliament’s police committee Sitole said that the matter had been cleared up in an investigation by the inspector-general and that the recent court cases which he lost related to the classification and declassification of documents.

He insisted that no grabber equipment, which can intercept phone calls, had been acquired.

DA spokesperson on police Andrew Whitfield asked whether there would be a disciplinary inquiry or dismissals as a result of the grabber controversy and whether Sitole and his two deputy commissioners would resign.

The Daily Maverick reported on Thursday that at end-June the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed with costs the appeal of Sitole against a high court judgment that found that he and his two deputies deputy national commissioner of support services Francinah Vuma and deputy national commissioner of crime detection Lebeoana Tsumane had breached their statutory duties.

The newspaper report said that for three years Sitole, Vuma and Tsumane had refused to hand over documents relating to the procurement to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid).

The high court in Gauteng found this had thwarted Ipid’s investigation into the irregular procurement by crime intelligence of the grabber at an inflated price of R45m.

The Daily Maverick report said that police minister Bheki Cele had told Sitole that President Cyril Ramaphosa had asked him to respond to certain issues in the judgment and that he, Cele, had called for an inquiry into Sitole’s fitness to hold office.

According to the report, this resulted in Sitole writing to Ramaphosa, pleading with him to hold off and that he would like to explain his side of the story.

Cele, however, told MPs that he had no knowledge about the court cases related to the grabber until Wednesday when he learnt by chance of the decision of the appeal court. What worried him he said was the costs awarded against the applicants.

The police minister reiterated that he had a good working relationship with Sitole though they were not friends.

The committee meeting was called to focus on the stability in and restructuring of the SA Police Service (SAPS).

BUDGET CUTS

Maj-Gen Leon Rabie, SAPS head of strategic management, said one of the big risks facing the police force was the repeated cuts in its budget which required the reduction of police officers.

In 2021/2022 and 2023/ 2024 the police budget will be cut by R39.2bn from its baseline allocation.

Rabie said this had resulted in a reduction in the number of people per police officer, which had declined from 1:259 in 2010 to 1:327 in 2021 as the police force declined and the size of the population grew.

The SAPS staff establishment had fallen from 194,605 in 2016/2017 to 182,126 at the end of 2020/2021 and will be further reduced to 162,944 in 2023/2024.

Rabie said the budget cuts had affected the achievement of SAPS’ human resource management priorities such as filling critical posts at middle and senior management; the enlistment of recruits; the establishment of specialised units to deal with gang and taxi violence; and implementation of the agreed grade progression.

The SAPS has embarked on an organisational restructuring to trim its personnel in line with its budget. The compensation budget of R75bn will remain stable over the next three years but will require a reduction in staff because of inflation.

Sitole said this considerable scaling down in the size of the police force “handicaps” the fulfilment by the SAPS of its constitutional mandate which, among other things, is to prevent, combat and investigate crime and maintain public order.

Committee chair Tina Joemat-Pettersson believed that the problem was due to the SAPS being top-heavy with about 200 generals and 600 brigadiers who in total earned about R1bn.

This was while more than 20,000 recruits will have to be forgone. Sitole agreed that the structure was top-heavy and that more police constables were needed. The restructuring would result in sections becoming redundant and posts being frozen, he said.

MPs were concerned about the number of acting heads of crime intelligence since 2010. There were 10 between May 2011 and February 2018.

Sitole informed the committee that the ammunition looted during the unrest in KwaZuluNatal did not belong to the state. About 1.5-million rounds of ammunition were stolen from a container depot in Durban.