The police’s administrative structure is eating up its crime-fighting budget and the number of commissioners currently in the service dwarfs the number of generals in the SA National Defence Force.
The SANDF has been severely criticised for employing 208 generals for a force only 60 000 strong.
The Czech Republic, with a military of the same size, had 26 and Sweden 15.
The police, according to figures valid on March 1, had 135 commissioners for a service 99 000 strong and the Correctional Services 21 for 30 858.
But that is comparing apples with pears.
Included in the SANDF figure are 160 brigadier generals; the same rank in the police and prisons service is called ”director”.
Adding them to the commissioners gave a total of 575 for 8 160 constables, 23 568 sergeants and 54 615 inspectors, the foot soldiers in the war against crime.
In the Correctional Services, like the police and military, a uniformed service not governed by the Public Service Act applicable to other civil servants, the number of general equivalents were 98 for 28 815 warders.
This management cadre presided over a sprawling national head office, nine provincial headquarters and 42 policing areas.
The SANDF had divided the same jurisdiction into five regions and 18 ”groups” — and were thinking about reducing the latter to nine to save money.
These ”groups” were generally commanded by colonels, of which the military had 710 and the police had
1 032 (called senior superintendents).
Group commanders frequently complained of having to deal with up to three different area commissioners — generally ranked two grades higher than themselves — when co-ordinating operations under the country’s national crime prevention strategy.
There was no known reason why area heads were generally ranked assistant commissioners, the equivalent of a two-star general.
One level down, station commissioners — the police officers in charge of the country’s approximately
1 200 police stations — varied widely in rank.
In addition to over-ranking and over-staffing in police headquarters countrywide, other practices were also gobbling up resources.
One, which recently surprised a member of parliament, was that senior public servants, generals and commissioners could fly business class. The majority of South Africa’s 400 MPs had less than 20 years of service and had to fly economy class.
Defence attaches accredited in Pretoria — who did not wish to be identified — said it was the norm in their countries for all public servants, regardless of seniority, to fly economy, including MPs.
According to recent media reports the ratios between lower ranking police officers were also inverted, with far more higher-paid supervisors than lower ranking ”bobbies on the beat.”
A study by the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies showed that South Africa had five-and-a-half times more police inspectors than constables and nearly four times as many sergeants.
This distribution was ”absurd” in terms of the functional responsibilities associated with these ranks internationally, according to Ted Leggett, who conducted the study.
”The South African distribution of rank jars sharply with international norms. The ratio of sergeants to constables is one to 4,5 in Australia, one to five in Britain, one to four in Canada, and one to 6,4 in the US. This situation is completely inverted in South Africa.”
In addition, sergeants and constables comprised only about a third of total staff — which compared poorly with the SANDF and the prisons where the bulk of staff fell into comparable categories.
According to the report the cost implications of this were significant –and not only in salaries.
Police were ”essentially promoted out of field duty” once they had achieved the rank of captain and new management positions had to be created to accommodate an ever-growing number of desk posts.
According to figures the police in March already had 8 136 captains versus 1 193 senior correctional officers in the prisons department and 2 829 captains in the military.
The problem was reportedly exacerbated by the lack of a new intake at the bottom end.
A 1996 assessment suggested full police strength for the country should be 161 755, but in March it was just 99 378.
It was not clear how the police intended to address these imbalances and free up more resources within its budget to fight crime.
Queries put to its human resources staff as early as July 17 have still not been answered — despite numerous requests.
Parliament’s defence portfolio committee recently gave Defence Minister Mosioua Lekota three months to produce a plan to address their concerns regarding the military.
Democratic Alliance safety and security spokesman Paul Swart said comparing the police and military should generally be avoided as their tasks and functions were different.
But what did worry him was the scarcity of resources and the fact that constables and sergeants were so few that gate guards at the Parliamentary housing complex in Cape Town were generally inspectors.
”In my youth a warrant officer was considered an important police officer. Now the rank is so devalued they open gates.”
Swart said one reason there was a shortage of junior police was that the service had pegged its salary bill at 78% of its budget. With rank inflation — and despite around 4 000 members leaving the service yearly — it could only afford a staff of 99 000.
He said he believed the only option open to the police was the one national Commissioner Jackie Selebi had presented in Parliament, namely the expanding of the service and replacement of attrition losses by recruiting at the entry level.
According to current planning Selebi intended having 25 000 new constables on the country’s pavements within four years.
In addition, the police needed to develop and stick to a meaningful organigram which could then govern the service’s structure and promotions.
This would free up resources for equipping police properly and running the service efficiently.
Parliament would be monitoring progress, he said. – Sapa