SAPS to be taken to court over ‘discriminatory allocation of resources’

Two activism groups will be seeking a court’s help in ending a “pattern of discrimination” in the allocation of the resources of the South African Police Service (SAPS). 

The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and Equal Education (EE) on Wednesday named Police Minister Nathi Nhleko and acting National Commissioner Kgomotso Phahlane Minister as respondents in their action.

The announcement of the application‚ made on the site of the proposed Makhaza Police Station in Khayelitsha‚ for a legal remedy was made after “no action has been taken” despite “repeated requests” to the respondents “to act on the pattern of inequitable‚ irrational and discriminatory resource allocation”.

They quoted the 2014 Khayelitsha Commission‚ which said “ne of the questions that has most troubled the Commission is how a system of human resource allocation that appears to be systematically biased against poor black communities could have survived twenty years into our post-apartheid democracy”.

“The SJC and EE have also since confirmed that a similar pattern applies in KwaZulu-Natal‚ where peri-urban Black communities with high crime rates are vastly under-resourced compared to other communities‚” they said on Wednesday.

“Given that the same underlying causes of this disparity are present in the other seven provinces‚ it is likely that they too perpetuate the inequities of apartheid.”

The application seeks the court to compel the minister and acting national commissioner to:

- Revise its theoretical system of allocating human resources through an open‚ consultative process in order to ensure outcomes that are rational and non-discriminatory;

- Make the theoretical and actual allocation of police human resources publicly available;

- Remedy‚ as a matter of urgency‚ the discriminatory allocation of resources within the Western Cape; and

- Declare that provincial commissioners have the power and the obligation to deviate from the theoretical human resource allocation in order to provide a fair and equitable distribution of police resources.

“In addition‚ the SJC and EE are seeking an order for the court to supervise the revision of the SAPS system that determines resource allocation as well as the actual allocation process of police resources.”