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MPs slam Mchunu’s R114bn budget, citing SA’s murder stats and ‘celebrity treatment’ for politicians

MPs slam Mchunu’s R114bn budget, citing SA’s murder stats and ‘celebrity treatment’ for politicians
Caryn Dolley
By Caryn Dolley
16 Jul 2024
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Police Minister Senzo Mchunu’s budget speech was met with wide-ranging criticism, including that some politicians are treated like celebrities in terms of their security, while the number of murders in South Africa is almost that of a war zone.

“Minister, our communities are living in fear of criminals. I was a victim of crime, extortion in particular, in Khayelitsha recently, where I was kidnapped and hijacked…

“Everything happened in full view of the public … even when I was taken to this place where I was supposed to be killed … I counted five different footsteps of people who were told not to pay attention, to mind their own business, while I was tied up ready to be shot.”

These were the words of United Democratic Movement deputy president Nqabayomzi Kwankwa to Police Minister Senzo Mchunu in Parliament on Tuesday, 16 July.

Read more: UDM Deputy President Kwankwa released after ransom paid following Cape Town kidnapping

During the same meeting, ActionSA’s Dereleen James spoke about how “this weekend I had to jump off my bed because they were shooting on the corner of my house in Eldorado Park”.

Kwankwa and James were among those allocated time to respond in Parliament to Mchunu after he presented his first budget speech.

His address was largely met with criticism, with the focus shifting to corruption in the South African Police Service (SAPS), the need for more stringent plans to prevent criminals from accessing firearms, the country’s high murder rate and the exorbitant VIP protection budget.

R113.5bn budget


In his speech, Mchunu said the SAPS’s budget vote for 2024/25 was R113.597-billion. 

(This appears to tally with what former police minister Bheki Cele said last year: “The SAPS total expenditure is expected to increase at an average annual rate of 3.9%. This is from R102.6-billion in the 2022/23 financial year to R114.9-billion in the 2025/26 financial year.”)

The Civilian Secretariat for Police Service was allocated a R155.9-million budget, while the Independent Police Investigative Directorate was allocated R370.5-million. 

Mchunu said the 2022/23 and 2023/24 budget periods had enabled the SAPS to enlist 10,000 employees during each of those periods. 

Read more: SA police Minister Senzo Mchunu on a mission to modernise policing to tackle ‘intolerable’ crime

“For the 2024/25 financial year, this additional funding will enable us to appoint another 10,000 police trainees, covering personnel losses through natural attrition and facilitating workforce growth,” he said.

Mchunu, however, conceded that when factors like population growth were taken into consideration, “of course these numbers are not enough”.

He said the detective services had been allocated R71.3-billion over the medium term, while R15.1-billion was earmarked for Crime Intelligence. 

Daily Maverick has previously reported that various police divisions, including detectives and the cybercrime component, were understaffed.

Mchunu did not mention it during his speech on Tuesday, but more than R2-billion was reportedly earmarked for VIP protection services, News24 reported on Monday.

Child pregnancies


On Monday, when Mchunu addressed his priorities after taking the reins from Bheki Cele, touched on crimes against women and children. During the budget speech debate in Parliament on Tuesday, Polly Boshielo, one of Mchunu’s deputy police ministers, addressed related issues. She said, “Our mothers and our children are no longer safe” in their homes.

https://www.youtube.com/live/J8r2UQEfMGA?feature=shared

Addressing another crucial issue, Boshielo said that in the 202o/21 financial year, 22,000 learners under the age of 16 became pregnant in Limpopo alone.

“The youngest was 10 years old.”

“What kind of society are we? Why is this normal … and we’re no longer shocked? ... Who must protect our children from ourselves?”

She said sexual intercourse with a child was “clearly a statutory rape case” and that such matters needed to be registered with the police.

Boshielo made it clear that “we are not going to let this continue.”

‘Cut the fat’


Several of those who responded to Mchunu’s proposed budget on Tuesday were critical of it, especially when it came to the billions of rands being spent on VIP protection.

Rise Mzansi’s Makashule Gana said that outside the room they were meeting in, “there are more protection and security services cars guarding politicians than the number of visible policing vehicles found in a police station”.

He asked: “Would you say this is fair, or are some people more equal than others?”

The issue of VIP protection has cropped up before. In April, the DA flagged that the SAPS had spent more than R42.67-million on petrol and diesel over six years on its VIP protection fleet.

The party said this was based on answers to a parliamentary question. 

On Tuesday, Gana suggested to Mchunu that he “cut the fat from the cost of protecting politicians”.

Build One South Africa’s (Bosa’s) Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster agreed with Gana and described South Africa as “a nation under siege”.

‘Celebrity-like’ treatment


She said that more than R2-billion had been allocated this year to VIP protection services for politicians of the Government of National Unity (GNU).

Hlazo-Webster said it was the same amount allocated to the Hawks to fight crime and corruption.

Read more: Part 4: Police and security — moving away from elite pampering to actually fighting crime

“To add to that, the amount allocated for VIP protection is going to increase under this national executive of the GNU because we have the most bloated executive that we have ever had in this country, with 75 members,” she said.

“Bosa wishes to unequivocally denounce the celebrity-like treatment of politicians that we have in this country.”

Hlazo-Webster said it was a “moral necessity” for Mchunu to review VIP protection spending and divert some of that money to fighting crime.

The National Coloured Congress’ Fadiel Adams said it could not back Mchunu’s budget.

“It cannot support a budget that allocates more to the protection of 72 VIPs than to Crime Intelligence. It is unthinkable.”

Gangster capital


Adams said 85 people would die in South Africa today, and that 20% of them would be on the Cape Flats.

Read more: Beneath politicking — ‘31 murders’ in Western Cape over a day ahead of SA’s biggest elections

Daily Maverick has reported many times on the high number of shootings and murders in the Western Cape, which is known as South Africa’s gangsterism capital.

In his speech in Parliament on Tuesday, Adams said that despite the desperate situation, police stations in Cape Flats suburbs remained under-resourced.

“Minister, I’ve gone into the Mitchells Plain police station and they did not have paper for an affidavit,” he said.

“That’s the state of SAPS.”

SA murder stats ‘like Gaza genocide’


The Economic Freedom Fighters’ Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said Mchunu’s proposed budget appeared to be geared towards reacting to and not preventing crime.

The EFF, he said, could therefore not support it.

Ndlozi said that in Gaza, 38,000 people (a figure widely reported) had been killed since the war started there, while in South Africa 27,500 people had been murdered (a similar figure was previously reported as being the country’s death toll between April 2022 and March last year).

“You have lost the war against crime,” Ndlozi said on Tuesday.

He added that the police stations with the highest crime rates had been identified and the reason lawbreaking levels remained high was that “police are part of the criminals”.

Several other issues were raised during the debate around Mchunu’s budget.

Whistle-blower priority


The DA’s Ian Cameron, chair of the Portfolio Committee on Police, dedicated his speech to a policeman killed in the Eastern Cape this week, as well as to Cape Town’s Lulama “Guffy” Dinginto.

She had been the deputy chairperson of the Gugulethu Community Policing Forum and was gunned down in December.

Read more: Cape Town crimefighter Lulama Dinginto shot dead in her Gugulethu home

Cameron said the protection of whistle-blowers needed to be ensured. He referred to the case of Babita Deokaran, the Gauteng Department of Health whistle-blower who was assassinated in 2021.

He said discipline in the ranks of the police was another area that needed attention, with unions previously telling Parliament that lower-ranking officers were sometimes punished more severely than higher-ranking ones involved in more serious misconduct.

Cameron said the SAPS structure was “top-heavy”, and while measures had been taken to reduce the number of deputy commissioners from six to two, it was an area that needed to be watched.

‘Cover-up’ concerns


uMkhonto Wesizwe’s David Skosana said the party could not support Mchunu’s budget as it stood.

He said the police system is flawed and that it was “time for a new era of policing in South Africa”. The foundation of the police should be public trust, Skosana said, and this was not yet the case.

He said more money should be channelled to Crime Intelligence and detectives.

Skosana also addressed another matter – the death in June last year of the former chair of the Portfolio Committee on Police, Tina Joemat-Pettersson.

Read more: Former minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson dies, aged 59

Daily Maverick previously reported that the cause of her death had not been confirmed.

Skosana said that more than a year had gone by and an investigation into what had happened to her remains ongoing.

“I am forced to enquire whether this protracted investigation is a result of gross police incompetence or a deliberate and sinister attempt to conceal the truth,” he said.

“The public deserves answers.”

‘I hear you’


In response to the debate on his budget speech, Mchunu said that essentially, everyone agreed that the safety of people in South Africa was a priority.

He added that different views and input would be considered going forward.

At one point, while Mchunu was wrapping up, Ndlozi asked about the money allocated to VIP protection services and how that was meant to fight crime.

Mchunu, though, said he had finished responding and that marked the end of proceedings. DM

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