The ‘morally and ethically sad’ reasons behind Ipid letting the police get away with murder

Cases of police brutality fall through the cracks of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), due to its lack of both independence and capacity.

This was according to experts reacting to explosive reports on alleged cover-ups of thousands of cases of serious crimes against members of the police force.

According to a report by ViewFinder, investigators manipulated case statistics by simply closing cases at a rate which suggested that little to no attempts had been made to do any real investigations.

Out of more than 42,000 criminal complaints against the police between April 2012, and March 2019, including allegations of murder, rape, assault and torture, only 531 Ipid cases resulted in successful criminal prosecutions.

Mpho Kwinika, South African Police Union (Sapu) president, said this phenomenon ran deeper than a simple lack of incentive.

He said Ipid investigators were not only compromised, but faced incredible pressure to drop cases because of the unit’s dependence on SA Police Service (Saps) resources and a lack of its own. This was compounded when the complaints were made by other police officers.

“Morally and ethically it is sad, because the rate at which these people are withdrawing complaints, is because there is no independence. It’s the capacity issues – and they do ncrimeot have all the forensic resources. They rely on the Saps and all the investigations are on the Saps database.

“If an officer is being investigated, he or she will have access to all the information on the case against them, including names of witnesses.”

Institute for Security Studies’ Johan Burger said government routinely failed to allocate a sufficient budget, especially for human resources in the agency.

“I don’t think this is as much about independence as it is about a negative incentive. If you look at the 2017-18 annual report and the report of the accounting officer of that time, Robert McBride: he said the Ipid budget for the compensation of employees was reduced – and not for the first time – by R14.4 million.

“In that year the budget for the following year, 2018-19 had been reduced by a further R23 million.”

Burger said this trend dated back to the establishment of Ipid’s predecessor, the Independent Complaints Directive (ICD), which at some point was understaffed by 50%. The last annual report released by McBride also pointed to the effects of the lack of funding this unit was exposed to.

“McBride said they were forced to close down four satellite offices,” said Burger. “Now Ipid works with provincial and national offices and in provinces that are geographically large with significant distances between places.”

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

Infographic by Costa Mokola. Source: IPID.

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