MPS have blamed a lack of planning for a critical shortage of police dogs that has hit the sensitive areas of explosives and narcotics detection and patrols especially hard.
There were 95 K9 patrol handlers, 84 explosives dog handlers and 31 narcotics dog handlers sitting without dogs, Parliament’s police oversight committee heard yesterday.
On top of this, 65 patrol dogs, 69 explosives sniffer dogs and 41 narcotics sniffer dogs were in the process of being boarded, having reached the end of their careers, Major-General Michael Motlhala, component head of police emergency services, told the committee.
A total of 215 K9 unit dogs were due to retire and 224 handlers already had no dogs, with a further 197 candidate handlers unable to proceed with training because there were no dogs for them, bringing the total shortage to 636 dogs, compared to the existing complement of 1 243 in the country.
A total of R10 million was set aside to buy new dogs in this financial year, but only R3m of this had been spent with two months left in the budget cycle, Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, newly appointed head of human resources, told the committee.
“In short, simple English, there is enough money,” he said, in response to questions from MPs about why the SAPS hadn’t budgeted to replace the dogs.
He blamed the difficulty of finding suitable animals and strict criteria, as well as a shortage of vets in the SAPS to screen the dogs, for the service’s inability to spend the budget.
The SAPS had identified 182 local dogs for assessment last year but only 43 passed the medical exam, while another 40 were sourced in the Netherlands.
But Mkhwanazi’s assurance that there were sufficient funds was contradicted by the presentation delivered by Motlhala, which noted it was fruitless expenditure to have trained K9 handlers deployed without dogs and said “funds are not allocated for the purchasing of dogs”.
The human resources division should provide a ring-fenced budget for this.
Chairman of the police committee Francois Beukman said there were “gaps” in the presentation.
“My question is: wasn’t there a strategic plan or a three-year plan to say, well, there’s a retirement analysis.
“Is there a retirement analysis in SAPS; we need to know, it’s critical,” Beukman said.
ANC MP Leonard Ramatlakane said it was hard to understand how an organisation with a budget of R72 billion could find itself in this position.
This led Lieutenant-General Khehla Sithole, deputy national commissioner for policing, to admit there had been “no tangible plan until last year”.
“One of the shortfalls we’ve identified, which we’re trying to change from a resources management strategy point of view, is the application of a resource matrix, which should dictate to us which should come first, the dog or the handler, or whether the two should come simultaneously,” Sithole said.
Beukman said the SAPS should return with an “integrated plan” to remedy the situation.
“It’s important that the most important crime areas SAPS is looking at are influenced by your ability to have specialised capacity. If you’ve got boarded dogs, you don”t have enough dogs in those areas - it’s going to affect your crime-combating ability,” Beukman said.
“It seems Parliament gave you more than enough money; there must be urgency on the matter; we must think out of the box,” he said.