Joemat-Pettersson ‘impressed’ by new energy at IPID

The recently appointed executive director of IPID, Jennifer Ntlatseng, presented its reports on the fourth quarter of 2019/20 and first quarter of 2020/21 to the committee on Wednesday.

In the final quarter of the 2019/20 financial year, 1 459 complaints were received.

During this quarter, 102 departmental convictions were secured from January to March 2020, resulting in 10 dismissals from the police, five referrals for corrective counselling, eight suspensions, eight verbal warnings, 25 final written warnings and 46 written warnings.

IPID also made inroads in its backlog, finalising 1 612 cases against a target of 1 490.

In the first quarter of 2020/21, it recorded 1 615 complaints, with 1 166 related to assault.

The total case workload by end of the quarter was 9 122.

During this quarter, 15 departmental convictions were secured for recommendations referred in previous financial years, leading to one corrective counselling, three suspensions, two final written warnings and nine written warnings.

Two criminal convictions were also secured during the quarter.

In one case, sentences of 20 years for murder and 10 years for attempted murder were handed down. The sentences will run concurrently.

In the other, sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment for kidnapping, 12 years for assault GBH, 12 years for corruption, eight years for defeating the ends of justice and 10 years for intimidation were handed down.

All sentences will run concurrently and the accused will serve 12 years in jail.

Ntlatseng informed the committee that by the end of October, IPID would appoint a legal assistance officer who will look at cases which prosecutors declined to prosecute.

In the fourth quarter of 2019/20, it only achieved 29 of its 41 targets compared to eight out of 30 in the first quarter. The Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on some of the indicators.

Ntlatseng, who took office in August midway through the second quarter, asked the committee to give IPID the benefit of the doubt and promised its performance would show an improvement by quarter three.

Joemat-Pettersson said she already detected an improvement.

“There is a bit more energy that has come into IPID,” she added, saying she got the sense there now was direction after the body was without a leader for more than a year.

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