Forensic division’s poor performance due to contract management – Cele

Criminal investigations into senior officers – including former acting police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane – and “terrible” contract management are the reasons for the dismal performance of the police’s forensics division, Police Minister Bheki Cele told the Portfolio Committee on Police on Wednesday.

At the briefing, the police presented their turnaround strategy for the division, whose survival has been described by the National Forensic Oversight and Ethics Board as seriously threatened. This followed a previous briefing by the police to the committee, in which the division’s dismal performance was laid bare.

Asked by DA MP Andrew Whitfield how the division arrived at this situation, Cele said they had a “problem with the dismissal” of the division’s former head, Phahlane.

In 2017, Phahlane was suspended by then-police minister Fikile Mbalula following allegations which impacted on his fitness to hold office.

In March 2019, Phahlane was arrested on charges stemming from an IPID investigation into a multimillion-rand blue light tender.

Phahlane and his co-accused – Lieutenant-General Ramahlapi Johannes Mokwena, national divisional commissioner in charge of supply chain management Brigadier James Ramanjalum, former Gauteng police commissioner Deliwe de Lange, Gauteng deputy police commissioner Major-General Nombhuruza Lettie Napo and Major-General Ravichandran Pillay – faces charges of corruption, fraud, forgery and uttering.

Cele told the committee the problem with the division stemmed from “criminal cases” related to it.

He said there was also a problem with supply chain, albeit that this was not unique to this police division.

“There has been a piecemeal approach to deal with these things,” said Cele.

“The contract management has been quite terrible.”

Furthermore, the police’s relationship with the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), which procured information technology on behalf of other state entities, had also not been ideal.

“We have requested some independence from SITA to do things faster,” said Cele.

National Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole said the forensics department was “highly dependent” on supply chain and technology management services (TMS).

Sitole said when he took office as national commissioner, forensics didn’t have a divisional commissioner, and there was no divisional commissioner for supply chain and TMS. And there were the investigations by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) and Treasury.

“We had to provide damage control responses,” he said.

The police provided an additional R250 million to the forensics unit for critical consumables.

Sitole said they would also increase the use of robots.

The police envisage that it could clear the backlog of 14 057 unassigned forensic cases in 14 weeks by 40 analysts dealing with an average of five cases per day. It could have been sooner, if the full complement of 80 analysts could work. This was not possible due to Covid-19 measures.

Cele said he believed the plan would succeed in turning the situation around and said the committee members shouldn’t be doomsayers.

Committee chairperson Tina Joemat-Pettersson said the police must supply the committee with monthly progress reports and in February they would meet again for a detailed report.

News24

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