The Portfolio Committee on Police has called on the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) to improve the quality of its investigations into police officers.
The Committee is concerned that the Directorate is seemingly focusing more on the quantity rather than quality of investigations as most investigations are seem to be rushed. “For the directorate to have an effective output, they need to be thorough in their investigations and focus on their core objective which is investigations,” said Acting Committee Chairperson, Ms Annelize van Wyk. It is the view of the Committee that IPID should increase its capacity and also put more focus on complaints against Metro Police officers.
IPID currently plans on building one more satellite office in the current financial year. The Committee is, however, concerned that these satellite offices are situated in cities instead of rural areas where most people do not know the mandate of the IPID. Therefore the Committee recommends that the Directorate relocates some of the planned offices to rural areas as to accommodate rural citizens.
The Committee is dissatisfied with the low investigations targets set by the Directorate and has called on them to have tangible measurable outputs. “They must have specific targets and in future their targets must be measured the same way the target of the detectives in SAPS are measured, thus detailing the number of cases they have investigated as well as the conviction rate,” said Ms Van Wyk.
The Committee is also concerned that IPID seems not to be forward-looking in their planning. It was only through questions by Members of the Committee that it became clear that they needed to improve their investigative and legal capacity.
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