Cape Town - The top brass of the police say they are doing everything possible to reduce possible under-expenditure of their budget to at least R1 billion at the end of the financial year in March.
The undertaking was made at the meeting of the police portfolio committee when they were asked about the projected under-expenditure. MPs heard that the SAPS recorded just 79% expenditure of its R100bn budget as at January 31.
Chief financial officer Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane said they were making strides towards ensuring that they put measures in place to circumvent the challenge they were experiencing.
Dimpane said that as at January 31, about R80bn of the R100bn budget had been spent.
DA MP Okkie Terblanche said the SAPS had recorded under-expenditure in the past financial year.
“We are heading for another under-expenditure. The police were unable to spend in respect of their allocation the previous financial year, yet we are saying we do not have sufficient budget,” Terblanche said.
Police Minister Bheki Cele said the question of under-spending was concerning to his ministry, the community at large and the police management.
“There are figures that don’t look well. When you are under-budgeted, it is really unacceptable that the budget is also under-utilised by the SAPS, especially in sensitive areas like public policing, detectives and intelligence,” Cele said.
Deputy national commissioner Francinah Vuma confirmed that they had been experiencing some under-expenditure.
“We are really experiencing dependencies in some of our expenditures in the environment of facility management and IT space. We really had challenges in machinery and equipment,” Vuma said.
She also said they had placed orders with vehicle manufacturers, but then had to cancel because the manufacturers experienced challenges with car parts not being available.
“We have looked at other manufacturers. More than R2bn is earmarked for the purchase of vehicles,” she said.
Dimpane said the actual spending on compensation of employees stood at 82%, and was marginally lower than anticipated.
“Various human resources priorities are still to be processed at different intervals,” she said.
Dimpane also said that the spending on goods and services was at 75% of the allocated budget, with the integrated criminal justice strategy spending very low.
She added that vehicle licence renewal payments were slightly lower than estimated, but some renewal periods were closer to the end of the financial year.
The CFO stated that payment for the police medical scheme, Covid-19 and injury on duty had yet to be resolved.
Dimpane told the MPs that payments for capital assets comprised 36.2% of the allocated budget.
“Buildings and infrastructure spending was very low at 20.9%. Public Works invoices are lower than anticipated and network infrastructure deliveries and payments have yet to be realised.”
Dimpane said there were also delays in the appointment of consultants for building and infrastructure projects that affected the finalisation of the appointment of town planning service panels of consultants.
“Dependency on municipalities, Department of Rural Development and Department of Land Affairs for the acquisition of land, rezoning and council resolution are part of the reasons for underspending. Illegal encroachment on the sites identified delayed the finalisation of projects,” she said.
Dimpane told MPs that there were also disruptions as a result of communities demanding 30% of sub-contracting.
There were “regular meetings between the SAPS and the Department of Public Works for interventions and progress on projects”.
Vuma said the funds that were likely to be underspent would be redirected to unfunded priorities.
“We are projecting that if things go according to plan, we will underspend by less than a billion,” she said.
Deputy Minister Cassel Mathale said that every cent the SAPS was given should be spent.
“We are not a savings bank. We need to spend any amount,” Mathale said, adding that underspending was a serious concern.
“We will look to improve expenditure … I hope next year we will have a different outcome,” he said.
Political Bureau