While the South African Police Service (Saps) has cut its overall budget, it appears that protecting politicians is a bigger priority than fighting the country’s endemic corruption, with the Hawks receiving R300 million less than VIP protection units this financial year.
Tabling his budget vote before Parliament this week, Minister of Police Bheki Cele stated the reduction in expenditure within his department over the medium term, but made no mention of having increased the VIP protection budget by 1.56%.
The 2021-2022 budget for VIP protection increased to R1.7 billion, with the expenditure for protection and security services totalling R3.23 billion.
This vastly exceeded the budget for the Hawks, with the investigative directorate receiving a relatiely paltry R1.4 billion.
In addition to the decrease in funding for the Hawks, the country’s visible policing sector’s budget was also cut by almost R4 billion, while crime intelligence’s budget was cut by R89 million.
VIP protection vs the Hawks
While it can be argued that VIP protection is a necessity, one has to weigh up the priorities of the police under tight budgetary constraints, and this has led to opposition parties rejecting the budget this week.
The key function of the VIP Protection Services is to protect the president, deputy president, former presidents, their spouses, ministers and MECs, explained Institute for Security Studies senior researcher Gareth Newham.
“Based on crime intelligence and threat analysis, they are entitled to police protection. VIP protection is also required to assess national key points and provide some sort of protection there.”
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The Hawks, on the other hand, “prevent billions of rands from being stolen from the state through corruption or lost through organised crime and they can assist with recovery of that money”, he explained.
Yet, when comparing the two entities, VIP protection had way more personnel than the Hawks, despite protecting only a few. According to Newham, the VIP protection service had up to three times more personnel than the Hawks.
“Do we need that amount of money spent on VIPs? Could it be better spent on public safety or stopping corruption? That assessment has not been an independent assessment.”
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“There are certainly questions to be asked on how we are getting value for money from VIP protection, which does very little, if anything, for public safety while using public money. Could that money not have been better spent on the Hawks, which stop corruption and prevent crime?,” he asked.
The 1.56% VIP protection budget increase went ahead despite promises by President Cyril Ramaphosa to look into the R1.7 billion expenditure which was reported two years ago by the Institute for Race Relations (IRR).
The report, authored by the IRR’s head of politics and governance Gareth van Onselen, was not far off the mark as it found that the budget would increase to R1.728 billion in the 2020-2021 financial year.
Asked for an update on Ramaphosa’s promise, his spokesperson Tyrone Seale could not respond by the time of publication.
“I’m trying to secure a response for you and will keep you posted,” he said.
Police union disgruntled by politicising of force
According to the South African Policing Union (Sapu), VIP protection within the Saps is unnecessary and only contributed to the politicising of the service.
“There is political involvement which taps into policing, where a minister feels their protectors are constables and they want them to be promoted. Then policing is politicised on that note and creates confusion for the whole entire force.”
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The police should rather look into improving resources such as vehicles and water cannons and increasing allowances.
“We are facing a situation in the public order policing unit where there are no water cannons, so the police resort to using rubber bullets for crowd control. There are a lot of things they could have used the money on in policing,” said Mogodiseng.