Police minister Bheki Cele is the master of deflection. His latest monomania to that end is that police officers may not have tattoos — or visible ones, at least — because these are the markings of gangsters, criminals and drug addicts.
Given the magnitude of problems facing the police service, the minister’s fixation on body art speaks volumes: it’s all bombast, carries little substance or thought and has no bearing on the kind of policy interventions that would improve the state of a police force in crisis.
The July 2021 unrest, mass shootings, mass rape, eye-watering levels of gender-based violence (GBV), organised criminals moving in on key sectors of the economy, illegal mining, the destruction of vital infrastructure through theft of copper and railway lines, rhino poaching ... these are indications of the rot and lawlessness that have set in.
Against this malaise is a bloated, inept, corrupt and ill-disciplined police force. It often looks blithely on as crimes take place, as was made disturbingly clear during the July unrest last year which saw more than 300 people killed and 2-million jobs lost, and which cost the economy about R70bn.
“We can’t go on like this,” says independent crime and policing researcher and former police officer Johan Burger. “We are moving towards a precipice where there will be no going back.”
The FM has canvassed analysts, researchers and former senior police officials, and all agree: the real issue is the political leadership of the police (or the decided lack thereof) over the past 20 years.
As independent policing analyst David Bruce puts it: “At the heart of the matter is that the government has not acknowledged that, at a basic level, there is a chronic problem with the police and it needs to focus on how to address that problem in a far more considered way.”
Standing obstinately between the problem and the solution is Cele. The minister visits crime scenes like a beauty queen frequents charity events, overshadowing — and undermining — the operational command in the process. PR, not policy, is his modus operandi. Even in his response to this article, he offers platitudes and repeated references to “ministerial imbizos”. It’s a lot of talking, but very little doing.
In the cynical world of politics, Cele’s need to bigfoot his way through crime scenes makes sense. Crime — or the perception of doing something about it — is, after all, a means to win votes.
Just this past weekend, newly minted Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi announced his “bold” plan to tackle crime by stepping up police visibility (think a fleet of new vehicles, drones and cameras on every street). It’s no doubt an attempt to ward off the ANC’s possible loss of Gauteng in the 2024 election (it narrowly retained the province in 2019). But it’s likely to fail — in part because police visibility may be the least of SA’s problems.
The real problem is twofold. First, South Africa’s political leadership isn’t implementing and developing policy to improve policing — the primary responsibility of the police ministry. Second is the structure of the police: it is bloated, top heavy and getting the basics wrong — including when it comes to entry and promotional requirements for police officers.
Missing the mark
Gareth Newham heads the justice and violence prevention unit at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria. He’s dismissive of politicians’ talk of “increasing boots on the ground”.
In this year’s budget, finance minister Enoch Godongwana allocated an extra R8.7bn over the next three years to the police — R2.9bn to cover higher wages, and the rest to hire 12,000 entry-level constables “to improve policing capacity”. Of these, 10,000 will replace staff who left, lifting the total headcount to 178,708.
But it’s an illustration of how there’s little intellectual application to the real problems. As Newham has written, the problem isn’t more money; it’s that the police force doesn’t deliver bang for its buck.
Earlier this year, Bruce’s research concluded that simply hiring more cops “reflects shortcomings in government thinking about how to strengthen policing”. Despite a recruitment drive between 2003 and 2012 — in which 123,606 officers joined the force — performance dropped.
Then there was the 2012-2020 surge in recruits, budget and infrastructural resources, says Newham. Far from reducing crime, it coincided with an increasing annual murder rate (now 20% higher), and a 42.9% rise in aggravated robbery (house robberies, hijackings and cash in transit robberies).
The problem, really, is a lack of political will. As Newham shows, police top brass told parliament back in 2019 that the focus should shift from quantity of policing to quality. Yet, even today President Cyril Ramaphosa still punts the swelling of the police ranks as a solution to South Africa’s ills.
Bruce makes a similar point. He tells the FM that the “knee-jerk” reaction by politicians in the aftermath of last year’s July unrest was to increase recruitment — with little consideration given to the quality of these recruits.
The police force is already the biggest public sector institution in South Africa. But it’s now becoming something of an employment agency: a report by Daily Maverick shows that police union Popcru has raised the alarm about people buying their way into the service.
It hardly inspires confidence in an institution designed to uphold the rule of law. But it’s also indicative of the broader malaise in the country. As democratic South Africa’s first police commissioner, George Fivaz, tells it, a “corrupt society is producing a corrupt police force”.
“In general, we have a problem with serious corruption,” he says. “Crime syndicates are working all over, from coal to copper to construction, they are all over. This is the environment from which police officers are being drawn.”
Then there’s the number of senior police officials arrested for and implicated in corruption. Since Fivaz’s tenure as commissioner, not one police commissioner has been free from scandal: Jackie Selebi, Riah Phiyega, Khehla Sitole, Khomotso Phahlane — even Cele himself (though the courts later overturned the decision to axe him).
That kind of leadership reflects lower down the ranks.
Two years ago, Cele admitted in parliament that 4,174 police officers had criminal records for a variety of crimes, including assault, theft, kidnapping and fraud. Crimes are now routinely committed with police-issue weapons, and it’s a not uncommon feature of our courts to see policemen shackled in the dock. Just this week, the Mail & Guardian reported that Western Cape gangs allegedly pay police officers anywhere from R400 to R4,000 to make crime dockets “disappear”.
“A fish rots from its head,” Fivaz says. “In my time, we never took prisoners when it came to corruption. Now, the rot at senior levels filters down to their juniors. I feel sorry for the new commissioner [Gen Sehlahle Fannie Masemola], I know him as a good man, corruption-free. The Hawks head Gen [Godfrey] Lebeya too. But they are sitting with too many corrupt people around them.”
Just days after the FM’s interview with Fivaz, it emerged that Masemola has been accused of receiving an expensive Louis Vuitton handbag as a gift from a service provider who received a R6.7m contract from the police during his time as deputy commissioner.
Masemola has not been at the helm of the police for five months yet, and he’s already being questioned by the National Prosecuting Authority over the gift, the Sunday World reported.
(The FM had, prior to this, sent questions to the police commissioner. His spokesperson Col Athlenda Mathe undertook to respond, but had failed to do so at the time of going to press.)
Newham, too, points to issues of corruption. “The root cause of the problem is the new political and top leadership see it as an employment agency,” he says. “Too many of the generals in the top structure should not be there ... many are loyal to [former president Jacob] Zuma and corruption has reached that top structure ... Corruption and incompetence — that’s where the problem is.”
Ziyanda Stuurman, policing analyst and author of Can We Be Safe?, says the high turnover in the upper echelons of the police is a source of despair. This is particularly problematic at the level of national commissioner, where there have been five incumbents in the past 10 years. In an institution where morale is critical, this has become an acute problem.
Burger raises similar points. Recent reports from Stats SA, Afrobarometer and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) all show that while morale within the service is low, public confidence in the institution is declining too, he says. The HSRC, for example, found that trust in the police remained relatively stable between 1998 and 2010, ranging from 39% to 42%. It dropped to 31%-35% between 2011 and 2016, before hitting its lowest level yet in 2021, at 27%.
But a further indication of an institution in decline is that discipline has suffered a major setback, says Burger. On the surface, the numbers would suggest otherwise: disciplinary cases are down 75% over the past decade, says Burger. But “civil claims have increased by 343%. It shows that police management are unwilling or unable to hold their members to account”.
When action against errant officers is actually taken, there’s little in the way of consequence. Drawing on police reports tabled in parliament, Newham notes that just 7% of the disciplinary hearings brought against members resulted in any sanction.
In all, it’s indicative of a lack of “command and control”, says Burger. In fact, he believes “pockets of excellence” are the only thing holding the service together.
The problem of structure
You’d think “command and control” would be easy to enforce, given the bloated upper layers of the service. Not so, say the experts. If anything, the structure of the police is itself one of the problems with the service.
Newham describes an astounding labour development: according to an agreement with labour, noncommissioned officers receive a promotion automatically every four years, regardless of their performance. So, for instance, between 2018 and 2019, 42,000 officers were promoted, swelling the salary bill by R1.2bn in the absence of any improvement in performance (salaries as a whole account for 77% or R259bn of the police budget). Yet actual police activity declined significantly between 2012 and 2020, says Newham.
In effect, it means the police are earning more and doing less.
At a policy level, there’s also marked failure. Policies are in place that could completely rejuvenate and overhaul the police — if they were actually implemented. As far back as 2012, for example, the National Development Plan (NDP) recommended that a national police board be set up to assess the performance of the 200 generals padding the top of the police structure, and to determine if so many were, in fact, needed. To date, there’s been no movement on that.
Robert McBride is the director of the foreign branch of the State Security Agency and former head of police watchdog the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid). He tells the FM that having so many generals sitting in Pretoria is completely nonsensical from an operational perspective.
“First, there is no crime [taking] place at the national level or at provincial level; all crime takes place in a locality,” he says. “So you see a disproportionate amount of resources at national level, far away from where it’s most needed. And you’ll also see a proliferation of generals and staff and all of them at the national level. What’s the implication? Simply, it’s disproportionate [use of] resources.
“The answer is that many of these competencies must devolve. That’s a bad word for us ideologically [in the ANC], but we have come to a point where you must do more, you must begin to cascade down to local level.”
The point, in part, is that the service needs high-level officers at the coalface, not sitting ineffectually in offices in Pretoria.
McBride also recommends a closer working relationship between the metro police and the national police, which at present work in silos. And he has harsh words for Cele, who he says “smothers out his national commissioners”.
It is a criticism that is repeated by analysts across the board — and it comes at the expense of policy formulation and implementation.
Burger tells the FM that when it comes to the policy front — an area that should be top of mind for Cele, but which he largely ignores — there is ample research and data available on what needs to be done to fix the police.
In 2018, for example, a special panel expanded on the recommendations contained in the NDP, allowing for easier execution.
Analysts agree that the NDP and subsequent reports based on it offer valuable inputs that simply need to be put into action. Only, Ramaphosa’s administration has clearly not seen fit to dust off these documents.
Ramaphosa, for his part, has hurtled from the Covid crisis in 2020 to the July unrest last year and is in the midst of an energy crisis. Policing, it seems, is low on his list of priorities. When it comes to his key ally Cele, however — well, he has no such excuse. As the minister appointed to deal with crime and corruption, he has just one job.
All hat, no cattle
The FM requested an interview with Cele to discuss his view on the problems with the police, and how these can be fixed. After giving us the runaround, his office replied to questions in writing. It’s a response that is superficial at best.
Asked about weaknesses in police service delivery, Cele replies that GBV “remains a priority crime for [the police]”. He tells the FM the police have changed their policy, and set up GBV desks staffed by officers specifically trained to deal with GBV and domestic violence. There are also “behavioural change programmes” aimed at perpetrators.
Still, he acknowledges that the police can improve service to GBV victims, and there are programmes in place to help with this. There are, for example, “talks” at police station level and ministerial imbizos (public consultations) where communities can talk about shortcomings in policing.
He also admits that the police could improve in reporting back to victims of crime, as “some community members have complained to say they don’t get regular updates about the progress of investigation of their cases through the investigating officers”.
Cele refused to respond directly to a question on what police management and provincial commissioners had to say to him after the most recent quarterly crime statistics, for the three months to June, showed an increase in serious crimes.
Burger believes there’s a simple solution: the police service needs a change management team and a police reform committee. “All the reports are there,” he says. “Cele doesn’t have to do the work [of formulating policy]. It is done — it just needs to be implemented.”
Take the issue of devolution of police powers to lower levels of government. Writing for the ISS, Bruce has noted the importance of delegating authority to provinces and even metros. This will, he notes, allow for “more nuanced policing and violence prevention ... rather than the one-size-fits-all approach reflected in police strategic and performance plans”.
It’s a course of action that the Western Cape is set on. Following the successful targeted deployment of law enforcement advancement plan officers in Cape Town, and the subsequent reduction in the murder rate in parts of the city, the Western Cape has requested devolution of police powers to provincial level.
Cele is having none of it.
“Section 199 (1) of the constitution states that the security services of the republic consist of a single defence force, a single police service and any intelligence services established in terms of the constitution,” he says. “Requests for a devolution require an amendment to the constitution, which falls outside the ambit of the police ministry.”
On the issue of building trust with communities — a key tool to managing crime — Cele says efforts to improve relationships are ongoing. Here, he points to the station accountability plan — announced in the wake of the most recent crime stats shock — as well as a “police station guardian programme”.
The station accountability plan is aimed at station commanders, who should know their staff, see to their welfare, take charge of their police stations, and keep track of station assets. “There are police officers that are failing communities,” Cele said when announcing the plan.
Under the guardian programme, senior officers from national level have been deployed to 30 stations in the top crime hotspots, and charged with meeting “clear targets of crime reduction and eradication”.
It’s a start, perhaps, to finally deploying ranking officers where they are most needed.
But much of what Cele says is vague, more on the lines of easy platitude than concrete plan. “This ministry is adamant that there is a need for deeper partnerships with communities built on trust, commitment, and delivery,” he says. “This is why the ministry continues to support [police] management to mend the relationships, through accountability at station level.”
The police, he says, are trying to respond “adequately and appropriately to crime”. And they will earn back lost trust by improving “overall police service delivery at station level, training police and supporting them to deliver a better service”.
He speaks a lot about community involvement in policing (there are apparently 772 effective community policing forums in the country). But one can’t help but wonder if this is nothing more than shunting responsibility elsewhere.
Still, Cele says some improvements have been recorded. There are, for example, police stations that previously occupied top spots as violent crime stations that have started to record lower numbers. The police are also leading crime prevention programmes in communities by going to schools, churches and places of entertainment. And, of course, there are the ministerial imbizos.
There have also been efforts to curb corruption in police ranks, he says. In September, for example, former national police commissioner Phahlane and five others were arrested in connection with a R54m police tender scandal.
“Such arrests and heavy sentences for police caught on the wrong side of the law are and remain deterrents,” says Cele, adding that the police anti-corruption unit continues to act against members implicated in wrongdoing, regardless of rank.
The reports concerning corruption and statistics about disciplinary action suggests less improvement than Cele may have one believe.
Beyond the haze, there’s much that can be done to fix the police — and fast. Newham lays it out succinctly: first, the police need to be professionalised, with a clear reform plan put in place against which the minister and top police generals can be held accountable.
This is nothing new — the NDP recommends the wholesale professionalisation of the police service and linking its code of conduct to promotion and disciplinary regulations.
Second, there is an urgent need to rejuvenate top management. “Successful police reform must begin with a fearless assessment of [police’s] bloated police leadership,” says Newham. “Too often political loyalty is valued over competence, and the wrong people are appointed to top positions, often without due process.”
These are two easy fixes. But they are, perhaps, too dull for our intrepid minister of crime scenes.
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