Pressure is mounting on police to fast-track the process of capacitating the unit, as the latest data shows the South African Police Service (SAPS) has lost thousands of detectives over the past six years.
Last week, National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola revealed that police had lost 8,400 detectives since 2017.
Masemola was responding to a question by the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the police portfolio committee.
In the 2016/17 financial year, SAPS had 26,000 detectives; fast forward six years and there are less than 18,000 detectives based around the country.
The drastic loss of detective manpower has been described as a crisis by the DA’s shadow minister of police, Andrew Whitfield.
Whitfield said the shortage of detectives in the country spelled trouble for an already ailing police force.
“Not only has SAPS lost thousands and thousands of skilled detectives but this is compounded by the fact that there is a shortage of vehicles, with up to 26% of detective vehicles broken in some provinces.”
According to the South African Police Service’s 2022/23 annual report, 99.8% of their detective services programme budget was spent, but only 43% of their targets for the programme were reached.
Police claim they are on a drive to capacitate detective services but have yet to respond to queries by the publication.
-EWN
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