More than half the SAPS’s senior management countrywide don’t have valid security clearance certificates.
During a briefing by Parliament’s portfolio committee on police yesterday, MPs were shocked to hear that out of 941 top police managers, 281 were still waiting to be vetted, while 224 had not submitted their applications.
Another shocking revelation was that 11 members of the top brass had failed the vetting process. These officers are drawn from the ranks of major-generals, lieutenant-generals and brigadiers.
This came hot on the heels of former acting head of crime intelligence Patrick Mokushane informing the committee last week about the serious backlogs in the vetting process in the SAPS.
Mokushane said the entire complement of senior officers in crime intelligence – more than 50 – did not have security clearances.
Yesterday, parliamentarians again heard that vetting in the provinces was hamstrung by capacity problems at the national offices of crime intelligence.
The lack of co-operation from the top officers when they were vetted was also blamed for the backlogs. “In some instances, they don’t give their full co-operation, which delays the vetting process,” Mokushane pointed out.
But the SAPS has developed an operational plan to not only wipe out the backlogs, but also shake up vetting at crime intelligence headquarters.
A detailed plan with time frames was presented to the committee to show that priority will be given to police managers, starting with colonels, the Police Ministry and employees at OR Tambo International Airport.
Parliamentarians were outraged yesterday and demanded answers as to why the situation had been allowed to continue for so long. They also wanted to know what was being done to avoid a recurrence of the current state of affairs.