Acting national police commissioner Kgomotso Phahlane had the usually tough portfolio committee on police eating out of his hand yesterday as he outlined an intense three-month turnaround project that is already delivering good results.
Members of opposition parties lauded his successes‚ with some calling for him to be made national commissioner permanently.
Phlahlane‚ who stepped into the post on October 14‚ has already set about making changes to the top police management — announcing yesterday that he had appointed Lieutenant General Gary Kruser to the post of deputy national commissioner.
Among other high profile appointments were historic appointments of two women‚ majors general Kotsi Nkomo and Nobesuthu Masiye‚ to lead detective services and visible policing respectively.
By November 2‚ he had appointed a team to implement a “management intervention” strategy which would deal with critical areas of underperformance in both the detective services and visible policing.
The team went into a strategy session in mid-November and the new strategies were implemented immediately after.
Among the strategies was a plan to send senior SAPS management to chronically under-performing stations‚ spending a minimum of five days.
Phlahlane also called for management meetings with station commanders in all nine provinces — with a total of 5661 commanders already reached.
By 9 December‚ the project had undergone its first performance review.
Phlahlane‚ a former detective himself‚ said he would lead the turnaround process for the detective services‚ where he said “our performance was too pathetic”.
Among the areas they would be focusing on were crime scene management‚ tracing and arresting wanted suspects‚ and minimising the number of long outstanding case dockets.
Phlahlane told the committee that “commendable progress” had been made in the area of old outstanding cases‚ reducing this number from 603‚178 in November last year‚ to 480‚753 in January- a decrease of 20.3% nationally. KwaZulu-Natal performed exceptionally well in this area‚ reducing their numbers by 43% over the same period.
Among the still-open cases they encountered was a theft case dating back to 1978.
“I was still in school!” he remarked.
The five-day management interventions‚ which included meetings with cluster and station management‚ detective and visible policing parades‚ inspections of facilities and working groups‚ also ensured that a total of 466 additional arrests were made.
Among these were a number of arrests made because DNA reports placed into case files had identified or confirmed suspects and all that needed to be done was to arrest the perpetrator.
Outlining the improvement in detective services performance‚ Phlahlane said that in the first quarter of the 2015/16 year‚ detectives met only five of the 15 targets set for them. This increased to six targets met in the second quarter‚ and based on preliminary reports‚ had met 12 of the 15 in the third quarter.
He also detailed thousands of arrests made during festive season operations between October and January in six key areas.
A total of 6‚752 arrests were made for aggravated robberies such as house and business robberies‚ 112‚989 for contraventions such as drug and alcohol related crimes‚ 6‚782 arrests for crimes against women and children including 4‚774 arrests for rape‚ and over 3‚500 wanted criminals arrested.
Over 19‚000 people were arrested for road safety related infringements (with 19‚426 driving under the influence arrests and 162 culpable homicide arrests) and 2‚913 arrests for border control infringements.
Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald lauded the progress saying “I hope our colleagues in the ANC who have the ear of the President will speak highly of the acting national commissioner and maybe he will become the national commissioner”.
He also praised Phlahlane for his announcement that farm murders were a police priority.
The EFF’s Philip Mhlongo said that the presentation provided “hope that we can restore the public’s confidence in our men and women in blue” while the DA’s Marius Redelinghuys said the new management’s approach to dealing and communicating to the public was an “improvement”.
He said people could now “look to the police with a little more pride” while the ANC’s Angie Moelebatsi said “the acting national commissioner and his team are really doing wonderful work”.
Acting police commissioner wins the hearts of MPs
Members of opposition parties lauded his successes‚ with some calling for him to be made national commissioner permanently.
Phlahlane‚ who stepped into the post on October 14‚ has already set about making changes to the top police management — announcing yesterday that he had appointed Lieutenant General Gary Kruser to the post of deputy national commissioner.
Among other high profile appointments were historic appointments of two women‚ majors general Kotsi Nkomo and Nobesuthu Masiye‚ to lead detective services and visible policing respectively.
By November 2‚ he had appointed a team to implement a “management intervention” strategy which would deal with critical areas of underperformance in both the detective services and visible policing.
The team went into a strategy session in mid-November and the new strategies were implemented immediately after.
Among the strategies was a plan to send senior SAPS management to chronically under-performing stations‚ spending a minimum of five days.
Phlahlane also called for management meetings with station commanders in all nine provinces — with a total of 5661 commanders already reached.
By 9 December‚ the project had undergone its first performance review.
Phlahlane‚ a former detective himself‚ said he would lead the turnaround process for the detective services‚ where he said “our performance was too pathetic”.
Among the areas they would be focusing on were crime scene management‚ tracing and arresting wanted suspects‚ and minimising the number of long outstanding case dockets.
Phlahlane told the committee that “commendable progress” had been made in the area of old outstanding cases‚ reducing this number from 603‚178 in November last year‚ to 480‚753 in January- a decrease of 20.3% nationally. KwaZulu-Natal performed exceptionally well in this area‚ reducing their numbers by 43% over the same period.
Among the still-open cases they encountered was a theft case dating back to 1978.
“I was still in school!” he remarked.
The five-day management interventions‚ which included meetings with cluster and station management‚ detective and visible policing parades‚ inspections of facilities and working groups‚ also ensured that a total of 466 additional arrests were made.
Among these were a number of arrests made because DNA reports placed into case files had identified or confirmed suspects and all that needed to be done was to arrest the perpetrator.
Outlining the improvement in detective services performance‚ Phlahlane said that in the first quarter of the 2015/16 year‚ detectives met only five of the 15 targets set for them. This increased to six targets met in the second quarter‚ and based on preliminary reports‚ had met 12 of the 15 in the third quarter.
He also detailed thousands of arrests made during festive season operations between October and January in six key areas.
A total of 6‚752 arrests were made for aggravated robberies such as house and business robberies‚ 112‚989 for contraventions such as drug and alcohol related crimes‚ 6‚782 arrests for crimes against women and children including 4‚774 arrests for rape‚ and over 3‚500 wanted criminals arrested.
Over 19‚000 people were arrested for road safety related infringements (with 19‚426 driving under the influence arrests and 162 culpable homicide arrests) and 2‚913 arrests for border control infringements.
Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald lauded the progress saying “I hope our colleagues in the ANC who have the ear of the President will speak highly of the acting national commissioner and maybe he will become the national commissioner”.
He also praised Phlahlane for his announcement that farm murders were a police priority.
The EFF’s Philip Mhlongo said that the presentation provided “hope that we can restore the public’s confidence in our men and women in blue” while the DA’s Marius Redelinghuys said the new management’s approach to dealing and communicating to the public was an “improvement”.
He said people could now “look to the police with a little more pride” while the ANC’s Angie Moelebatsi said “the acting national commissioner and his team are really doing wonderful work”.
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