Can Cele allow top cop General Fannie Masemola to do his job?

He is undoubtedly the most visible minister in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet. ‘Hands-on’ and with his trademark of donning stylish hats, you cannot miss the sight of Police Minister Bheki Cele.

If the performance appraisal of ministers was solely based on visibility and soundbites alone, Cele would certainly come up tops.

But since assuming the role of the political head of the police department – charged with a responsibility to show leadership, overseeing policy and its implementation by South Africa’s most senior police officer, General Sehlahle Fannie Masemola and the rest of the SA Police Service (Saps) – you’d sometimes be forgiven for thinking Cele is the national commissioner.

From the high-profile murders of former Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa to the callous killing of Hillary Gardee, Cele has been among the first to be in crime scenes.

He is always the first to pronounce ‘progress’ in investigations and on suspects arrested, without achieving any real breakthroughs.

During the tenure of the dismissed former commissioner Khehla Sitole, Cele adopted a similar posture; the first to speak on issues and crime-related investigations, leaving the Saps boss without much to say.

In a crime-ravaged country like ours – where the murder rate increased by 8.9% in the last three months of 2021 compared to the same period in the previous year – kidnapping shows the biggest increase of 35.7% compared to all other crime categories.

The killing of women continues to soar, and we are far from winning the war on criminals.

The long list of unresolved cases and blunders in crime investigations – which have often seen police arresting suspects later found not guilty in court – is an indictment of the poor state of the Saps, which has for too long been marked by much acrimony between Cele and the police top brass.

For years, bedevilled by leadership instability, creeping corruption within its ranks, and the poorly equipped and trained Saps is far from being benchmarked against the best police departments in the world.

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While we still have a few good men and women in blue, we lag behind the rest of the globe when it comes to quality of investigations, training and equipment.

While Singapore, Finland and Denmark boast the best-performing police forces globally, SA is the 39th worst performer out of 127 countries.

These findings by the World Internal Security and Police Index should give Cele sleepless nights.

With SA being one of the most dangerous countries, we daily observe how those of us with the means to do so enlist private security companies for safety.

This alone does not reflect well on Saps’ track record.

Experts say lack of leadership is behind the many challenges experienced by Saps, with the SA Institute for Security Studies independent researcher David Bruce conceding the policing crisis deeply affects society.

It has always been pointed out that the failure of government to appoint suitably qualified people to lead Saps – independent of political interference – was among the issues hindering the force to function optimally and efficiently.