The head of Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) ethics division has testified that its KwaZulu-Natal office is "dysfunctional" and was illegally closing cases without proper investigations.
Amar Maharaj was testifying at the Moerane Commission which is investigating political murders in the province.
Violence monitor and human rights activist Vanessa Burger alleged, during her testimony before the commission last month, that the Ipid KZN office was dysfunctional.
At that time the directorate dismissed her allegations, but Maharaj on Wednesday described the dismissal of the allegations as a “knee jerk reaction”.
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Maharaj said since the testimony he had received extensive data of hundreds of cases which showed there had been problems with investigations into the police by the body.
“The office of Ipid in KwaZulu-Natal is dysfunctional. I have received many case files of cases of people dying in police custody.
“There are cases that are closed and archived without any further actions. There are hundreds of cases closed without investigation by Ipid,” he said.
Maharaj said some cases in the Ipid register had been registered as complete but he could not find any information to prove such the cases had been finalised.
“It is not my intention to cause Ipid harm but I must act in the public interest. In KZN, cases are closed en-masse at the end of the month just to meet statistical targets, and people get bonuses for closing the cases,” he said.
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He said the directorate's investigators closed investigations on spurious grounds.
“(They say) they could not find the witnesses so the investigation is complete. Those reasons are stated but are unacceptable,” he said.
The body had been invited to testify before the commission because witnesses had expressed concerns about the quality of police investigations into murders of their family members and had expressed concerns about IPID investigations of the police.