Police record R2.2bn in civil claims in one financial year – minister Mchunu

The SAPS is facing over R2.2bn in civil claims for wrongful arrests and detentions for the 2023/24 financial year police minister Senzo Mchunu revealed in a response to a parliamentary question by Rise Mzansi’s Magashule Gana. 

The claims emanate from 4,153 alleged wrongful arrest incidents. “Claims totalling R2,241,082,675 were filed with the SAPS. However, it should be noted this is not the amount that would potentially be paid to claimants," he said. 

Meanwhile, 1,416 rape cases, nine for murder and 18 for hijacking, were withdrawn by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) due to insufficient evidence during the same period.

However, Mchunu could not provide a number for cases the NPA refused to prosecute due to insufficient evidence. He was unable to state the total number of suspects arrested during shootouts with the police and have been released due to insufficient evidence in the last 10 financial years.

“This information is not readily available on the Case Administration System (CAS)/ Integrated Case Docket Management System (ICDMS). A detailed analysis will have to be conducted, per station, in order to provide this information,” said Mchunu. 

“Case dockets will have to be extracted from archives and manually perused to identify the cases that relate to this request. This will be an extremely time-consuming exercise, which — given the operational policing requirement — would not be practical, as it will divert critical resources, thereby impacting negatively on service delivery.” 

Mchunu recently reported that serious crime, including murders, decreased by 0.9% in the first quarter of the 2024/25 financial period, but murders remained a problem in coastal provinces.

TimesLIVE reported that while Gauteng had the highest number of reported cases, it saw a significant decrease in most crimes. However, there were an additional 1,921 cases of rape, 79 of attempted sexual offences, 2,072 more of robbery in residential areas and 42 more cases of truck hijacking.

Gauteng saw a 4.5% decrease in crimes compared to the same period in the previous year, slightly behind the Northern Cape, which recorded a 4.8% drop in reported crimes.

Murder, which often remained the top crime, was down 0.5% with 30 fewer murders reported compared to the same period in the previous year. KwaZulu-Natal experienced the largest decrease with 129 fewer reported murder cases, followed by Gauteng with 109 fewer cases.

Despite this, the murder per capita rate remained high in coastal provinces of the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

TimesLIVE