Police officials splurged more than R80 million during the past financial year on trips overseas, but the Department of Police is refusing to give further details.
Information provided by the department, and revealed by Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa on Wednesday, said a total of 919 SAPS officials undertook 218 overseas trips during the 2011/12 financial year.
The total bill was R81 441 798 – which averages out to more than R88 000 for each official.
Daily allowances, which ran to a total of more than R24m, average out to more than R26 000 each.
The cost breakdown was as follows:
* Accommodation R22 959 409.
* Daily allowance R24 371 968.
* Transport R30 670 433.
* Food and beverages R206 558.
* “Incidental costs” R3 233 430.
Total: R81 441 798.
ANC MP Annelize van Wyk, a member of Parliament’s police oversight committee, wanted to know the names of each official who travelled, as well as the purpose and the outcome of every trip.
But in his written reply to her questions, Mthethwa does not provide the information.
It appears that the department, which his spokesman said had supplied the information, was coy about giving details.
The reply suggests that doing so might hamper ongoing criminal investigations.
Instead, Mthethwa’s reply makes vague reference to the trips as having included “attending Interpol-related matters”, regional meetings of police chiefs and subcommittees within the Southern African Development Community (SADC), conferences and training for peacekeeping and transnational crime, as well as “investigative matters”. Study tours, SADC election observer missions, UN peacekeeping meetings and EU security consultations were also listed.
Other trips were “of an operational nature where follow-ups are carried out within the context of organised crime and other criminal matters”.
“Given the fact that trips are inclusive of matters relating to investigations, and some of the investigations are still continuing, giving names of members and the outcome of each trip might have a negative impact towards resolving crimes that are being investigated.”
Mthethwa’s reply said that the outcome, or impact, of all the foreign travel “cannot be realised immediately”.
Mthethwa’s spokesman, Zweli Mnisi, said that this was an issue the minister might take a much closer look at in the near future.
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“While we understand that our police officials will from time to time travel overseas, mainly to learn, interact and share expertise with their counterparts from other police departments worldwide, we equally believe that consideration of cost implications must be taken into account.
“We must, as a department, ensure that our expenditures are not exorbitant and that we are in line with government’s cost-saving principles of hair-cutting as announced by the finance minister.”
Van Wyk said she would be asking further questions about the spending and those who benefited from it.
Sapa reports that MPs held heated final deliberations on draft legislation to restructure the Hawks in line with a Constitutional Court judgment.
Opposition parties warned that the proposals would fail to satisfy the court. MPs were expected to vote on the bill last night. The original version tabled has been changed to give the members of the elite corruption-fighting unit greater security of tenure, and to limit the influence of the national police commissioner over it.
In the version set to go to the National Assembly the head will be appointed for between seven and 10 years. Although the head can still be removed by a vote in the National Assembly, Parliament’s portfolio committee on police has agreed this can be done only after an investigation headed by a sitting or retired judge.
These changes came about after experts told public hearings that the initial draft failed to satisfy the requirements of the Constitutional Court. - Political Bureau