THE New National Party (NNP) on Sunday praised the police and congratulated them with recent successes while the Democratic Alliance called for more forensic experts to be appointed.
The NNP said in a statement that it has become customary to criticise the police.
”The crime situation is very bad and sometimes it seems the police don’t make a difference at all,” the party’s representative on safety and security, Johnny Schippers said.
”Things like bad administration, negligence, and slow reaction time is often the key issues in these criticisms. However, today the NNP wants to congratulate the police with recent successes they have achieved.”
He said not enough attention was being paid to the successes achieved by the police because they were not ”interesting or controversial enough”.
”South Africans love to complain and don’t even see the positive things the police have achieved anymore.”
Schippers said that the crime situation in the country was ”not at all” under control, but that the circumstances under which the police worked should always be kept in mind.
”Not only do they not have the necessary resources, but they are also extremely understaffed.”
He expressed the hope that the newly appointed Safety and Security minister, Charles Nqakula, would continue with the campaign of late minister Steve Tshwete, who secured a bigger budget for the police, to improve their working conditions.
Meanwhile the Democratic Alliance (DA) called Nqakula to increase the number of forensic scientists at police laboratories.
DA representative Paul Swart said in a statement that Nqakula’s plan to re-open at least a million old cases would place a lot of strain on the already overworked and understaffed forensic department.
”The South African Police Service’s forensic department needs at least 1 500 additional scientists to properly investigate the 13 5000 existing cases and reduce the current backlog of 6 000 cases,” he said.
The police’s forensic department lost a large number of scientists and analysts due to poor remuneration, while the case load has significantly increased.
”The caseload of the SAPS forensic department has exploded from 94 654 cases in 1999 to an estimated 135 000 in 2002. This means that the caseload ratio per scientist is approximately 243 cases per scientist in South Africa compared to 65 cases per scientist in the United Kingdom.”
Swart called on Nqakula to work out a plan on how to appoint more and better paid scientists and analysts to deal with the high case load and back log.
”Currently, only 10% of criminal cases result in convictions. Increasing the number of scientists and analysts in the SAPS forensic department, and improving their facilities and working conditions, would very likely see a significant increase in this figure,” Swart said. – Sapa