The detective service is not the only entity responsible for investigating crime in South Africa. The Directorate of Special Operations, the Asset Forfeiture Unit, the South African Secret Service (SASS), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), and the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) also investigate crime in South Africa.

This chapter considers the nature of these other entities and their relationship with the detective service. In particular, the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) is compared with the detective service to explore areas of overlap and potential conflict.

The Directorate of Special Operations

The DSO or ‘Scorpions’ was launched on 1 September 1999 amid much fanfare. It was said to be ‘South Africa’s FBI’, because of its emphasis on prosecution-led investigation. However, while the US requires such a body with federal jurisdiction, in South Africa the SAPS already has national jurisdiction. Many saw the DSO as an alternative police agency and predicted rivalry and clashes with the SAPS, in the absence of a clear delineation of different responsibility.

The DSO at first operated under existing National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Act provisions, which provided for the establishment of ‘investigating directorates’.65 Investigating directorates operated in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Johannesburg and were staffed by persons seconded from the Department of Justice, the SAPS and other bodies. In early 2000 the legislation creating the DSO was passed as an amendment to the NPA Act.66 The amendment act provides that the DSO has the aim of investigating, gathering information and prosecuting offences committed in ‘an organised fashion’, as well as any offences proclaimed by the president in the Government Gazette. Section 7 of the NPA Act, defines ‘organised fashion’ in much the same way as the criminal gang and racketeering offences are defined in the Prevention of Organised Crime Act of 1998, bringing the combating of organised crime clearly under the wing of the DSO:

“Investigating Directorates.—(1)(a) There is hereby established in the Office of the National Director an Investigating Directorate, to be known as the Directorate of Special Operations, with the aim to—

i. investigate, and to carry out any functions incidental to investigations;

ii. gather, keep and analyse information; and

iii. where appropriate, institute criminal proceedings and carry out any necessary functions incidental to instituting criminal proceedings, relating to—

(aa) offences or any criminal or unlawful activities committed in an organised fashion; or

(bb) such other offences or categories of offences as determined by the President by proclamation in the Gazette.

For the purpose of subparagraph (aa), ‘organised fashion’ includes the planned, ongoing, continuous or repeated participation, involvement or engagement in at least two incidents of criminal or unlawful conduct that has the same or similar intents, results, accomplices, victims or methods of commission, or otherwise are related by distinguishing characteristics.”

However, section 26(2) of the NPA act explicitly retains the SAPS’ powers:

“Nothing in this Chapter or section 7(1), or any proclamation issued in terms of section 7, derogates from any power or duty which relates to the prevention, combating or investigation of any offences and which is bestowed upon the South African Police Service in terms of any law.”

The South African Police Service Act 68 of 1995 provides in section16 for the national prevention and investigation of crime in the circumstances of organised crime—which as illustrated above is also the area of work of the DSO. This could lead to potential conflict over turf.

Section 28(2) of the NPA Act also requires the DSO to pass information which it does not intend to use, on to the SAPS:

“If the Investigating Director, at any time during the conducting of an investigation, is of the opinion that evidence has been disclosed of the commission of an offence which is not being investigated by the Investigating Directorate concerned, he or she must without delay inform the National Commissioner of the South African Police Service of the particulars of such matter.”

The Act attempts to resolve possible conflict between the DSO and SAPS by creating a ministerial co-ordinating committee designed to determined who investigates what and to resolve conflict by consensus:

“31. Ministerial Coordinating Committee.—

1) There is hereby established a committee, to be known as the Ministerial Coordinating Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Committee), which may determine—

a) policy guidelines in respect of the functioning of the Directorate of Special Operations;

b) procedures to coordinate the activities of the Directorate of Special Operations and other relevant government institutions, including procedures for—

i) the communication and transfer of information regarding matters falling within the operational scope of the Directorate of Special Operations and such institutions; and

ii) the transfer of investigations to or from the Directorate of Special Operations and such institutions; and

c) where necessary—

i) the responsibility of the Directorate of Special Operations in respect of specific matters; and

ii) the further procedures to be followed for the referral or the assigning of any investigation to the Directorate of Special Operations.

2) The Committee comprises—

a) the Cabinet members responsible for—

i) the administration of justice, who is the chairperson thereof;
ii) correctional services;
iii) defence;
iv) intelligence services; and
v) safety and security; and

b) any other Cabinet member designated from time to time by the President.

3) The Committee may conduct its business and proceedings at its meetings as it deems fit.”

Unfortunately, it appears that this committee is not yet operational and significant conflict has already occurred between, in particular, the organised crime units of the SAPS and the DSO.67 This has particularly been the case in KwaZulu-Natal, with the units accusing the Scorpions of ‘cherry-picking’ cases and then taking credit for subsequent arrests. However, the attitude of some SAPS organised crime unit heads is that the rivalry is a positive development which will lead to better performance by both the organised crime units and the DSO.68

The legislation therefore does not clearly outline a jurisdictional basis for distinguishing between the DSO and the detective service of the SAPS. Other possible differences between the detective service and the DSO that justify their concurrent existence are discussed below.

Prosecution-led investigations

One possible difference is that the DSO’s operations are identified through intelligence, and are prosecution lead. Each investigation, which is person—or group—targeted rather than crime targeted, is lead by a senior prosecutor. The prosecutor works with a team of investigators—often former SAPS detectives. There are usually three investigators, but in a complicated commercial case, for example, up to eight investigators may work together.

At the time of the establishment of the DSO this may have been a novel approach, but the SAPS is also now moving toward a ‘multi-disciplinary approach’ especially in combating organised crime. Ad hoc arrangements with prosecutors are also often made in these SAPS investigations. However the crucial difference is that in the DSO, prosecutors and investigators work together and see each other on a daily basis. The prosecutor closely leads every step of the investigation.

This is not to imply that a prosecution-led investigation is always appropriate. Prosecution-led investigation may well be appropriate in the case of an organised crime group or group leader, where the ‘guilt’ of a given target of an investigation is well known in advance of an investigation.

This is the situation where a known criminal continually escapes justice due to insufficiencies of evidence or loopholes in the law. All that is required is the amassing of the appropriate amount of evidence admissible in a court of law in order to convict the target, or to have his or her assets forfeited. A prosecutor in such a situation may give crucial guidance to investigators as to what kind of evidence will be useful or necessary in court. In the case of many crimes, however, the identity of the perpetrator is unknown. To have an investigation where the identity of the perpetrator is unknown being led by the prosecution risks blurring the roles of investigation and prosecution.

It has also been said that “the objective of a criminal investigation and a criminal prosecution is not to secure a conviction—it is to serve the interests of justice… The prosecutorial role is a role that is distinctive from the investigative role, and the great contribution that the prosecutor brings to the investigation is a professional detachment and objectivity.”69

A prosecutor should therefore not be giving advice on how to further implicate a particular suspect whose guilt is not clear; he should rather be deciding on whether the evidence brought before him or her by an investigator is sufficient to proceed with and secure a conviction.

Several investigators per case

In the DSO, each case has far more investigators assigned to it than would ordinarily be the case in the SAPS. Where teams are created in the SAPS, this is usually on the initiative of individual management and not as a result of any directive from above. Ordinarily, a single detective will be assigned to many cases.

Nevertheless, while it is true that currently the DSO may approach a particular matter in a somewhat different way from the SAPS (prosecution-led; teamwork) this need not remain true (the SAPS could implement such changes if it so chose) and is not an argument for the maintenance of two bodies engaged in essentially the same activity.

Budgets

The DSO and SAPS detective service are financed quite differently. The National Prosecuting Authority falls under the Department of Justice budget, and the DSO’s budget in turn comes out of the NPA budget. At the time of the establishment of the DSO, the ‘Special Operations’ budget was R16,774m—which was 47 times smaller than the R786,278m of the organised crime sub-programme of the SAPS (Table 20). Even at a yearly growth rate of around 82%, by 2003/04 the DSO’s budget will still only be a third the size of the organised crime sub-programme of the SAPS: R315,500m as compared to R1,016,830m.

Table 20: Budget of DSO and SAPS organised crime programmes compared (millions)

	1999/00	2000/01	2001/02	20002/03	2003/04
SAPS organised crime subprogamme	786,278	845,239	905,329	965,819	1,016,830
DSO	16,774	149,339	210,000	272,000	315,500
Ratio DSO: SAPS	1:47	1:6	1:4	1:4	1:3

Source: Department of Finance, 2001 Estimates of National Expenditure.

This nevertheless means that 58% of the entire National Prosecuting Authority budget will be devoted to the DSO by 2003/4, as can be seen from the table below (Table 21).

Table 21: National Prosecuting Authority budget, subprogrammes

Subprogramme (R million)	1997/ 1998	1998/  1999	1999/ 2000	2000/ 2001	2001/ 2002	2002 / 2003	2003 / 2004
Public Prosecutions	80	90	126	150	180	199	206
Witness Protection	16	16	14	19	25	26	28
Special Operations	9	9	17	149	210	272	316
Total	105	115	156	319	415	497	552

Source: Department of Finance, 2001 Estimates of National Expenditure.

The very small base from which the DSO budget has grown can be accounted for by the fact that salaries of most of the personnel at the time of the DSO’s establishment were paid for out of other budgets, for example the Ministry of Justice (in the case of the prosecutors) and the SAPS (in the case of the investigators), due to the secondment of employees from these structures.

Personnel accounts for the largest type of spending by standard items of expenditure in the NPA, and as can be seen from the table below (Table 22). This spending will rise steeply over the next few years as the DSO become accountable for their own personnel spending. This is also reflected in the steep rise in spending and professional and special services, as the DSO also make use of outside professional expertise upon occasion.

Table 22: National Prosecuting Authority budget, standard items of expenditure

Standard Items of Expenditure (R''000)	1997/98	1998/99	1999/00	2000/01	2001/02	20002/03	2003/04
Personnel	74,001	79,624	108,654	201,602	245,519	295,545	315,910
Administrative	6,337	8,685	17,162	26,311	36,891	43,010	45,494
Inventories	1,209	1,206	2,729	6,161	8,942	10,425	11,027
Equipment	1,205	2,422	4,728	22,288	14,959	22,440	28,447
Land & Buildings	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Professional  & special services	5,191	6,369	7,641	40,085	79,054	92,167	97,489
Transfer payments	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Miscellaneous	17,065	16,967	15,290	22,427	30,000	33,250	50,560
Total	105,003	115,059	156,204	318,872	415,365	496,837	548,327

Source: Department of Finance, 2001 Estimates of National Expenditure.

Vehicles, equipment and buildings for the DSO were also largely on loan via the budgets of other departments. Much of the training of new recruits was initially done in the United States by the FBI and in the United Kingdom at Scotland Yard at no cost to the South African government. However, it can be expected that by 2003/04 these arrangements will have ceased completely.

If the DSO remains only a third as big as the organised crime sub programme of the detective service, it is difficult to imagine how it can compete effectively with the detective service, and indeed, whether there is an argument for the existence of both structures. Even should one imagine the DSO to be far more efficient than the SAPS in its operation, capacity constraints will eventually take their toll on the DSO.

Further to the question of whether South Africa can afford two entities combating organised crime, is the question of whether organised crime should be prioritised to the extent that it clearly has been, both financially and structurally. Arguments for and against such prioritisation will be considered below.

Should organised crime be a priority?

South Africa has prioritised organised crime. The SAPS’ crime fighting strategy incorporates a separate organised crime threat analysis.70 The government has also created the DSO which has as its focus the combating of organised crime, and the new organised crime specialised units. Together, these bodies take up a substantial share of the crime-fighting budget.71

The temptation is to look at available information on the extent of organised crime in South Africa, and to conclude from the figures that combating organised crime should be priority. But this is not as logical as it seems. Just because, for argument’s sake, thefts out of motor vehicles are widespread, or 80% of the population uses marijuana, does not imply that these phenomena should be prioritised.

It could be argued that violent crime, rather than organised crime, should be a priority. After all, if given the choice between protecting their lives or their property, most South Africans care more about personal safety. South Africa is a violent country, with 33% of all crimes being violent in nature.72 In the US by comparison, only 15% of all crimes are violent.73 This alone suggests that violent crime, whatever its origin, should be prioritised.

Such violence is also important in respect of public attitudes to rights. The impression among citizens has been created that the rights of offenders who commit violent crimes are endangering their lives. The prioritisation of violent crime could show that these kinds of crime can be policed properly, within a human rights framework, despite limited resources. It is nevertheless understandable why organised crime is attractive as an investigative priority. The sense is that if groups and their leaders can be eliminated, the crimes they are committing will be reduced.

Organised crime in its pure form, as envisaged by our legislation, is basically a business operating for profit, conjuring up words such as ‘empire’. Simply eliminating such syndicates or their leaders does not help in the long term: fighting this kind of organised crime is a never-ending battle. Where there is a market, someone or some group will serve it. Shutting down groups that supply a market simply pushes prices up, raising the stakes, spawning new groups, and possibly increasing violence.74 Generally speaking, the violence associated with organised crime is often inter and intra group violence.

Policing organised crime, especially drug based organised crime, may create big headlines and good publicity, and generate money when married with asset forfeiture, but what happens after the policing? In the current legal framework, policing, especially of drug-based organised crime syndicates, may in fact increase violent crime levels.75

The argument for the prioritisation of violent crime over organised crime is a citizen’s argument. Governments have other considerations. Organised crime is a far greater threat to the authority of the state than it is to an individual citizen:

• Firstly, organised crime creates an economy outside of official markets.
  
  
• Secondly, organised crime creates an authority outside of the state which can effectively control communities.
  
  
• Thirdly, the line between organised crime and terrorism (and treason) is a thin one.
  
  
• Fourthly, South Africa is no longer a lone player who can look only to its own national interests, or those of its citizens, when deciding on national priorities
  

Indeed the early logistical and material support by Western governments such as the US and the UK for the launch of the DSO, was not purely philanthropically based, but to a degree based on preventing South Africa from becoming a base for activities would could impinge on those countries.

While it may therefore be argued that there is a case for prioritising organised crime, it is by no means clear that the current situation with respect to the DSO and the organised crime units of the SAPS should be permitted to persist, without further clarification of their respective roles and avoidance of duplication. Possible ways of doing so are considered in the last chapter.

The Asset Forfeiture Unit

The Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) is a division of the National Prosecuting Authority. Its function is to carry out the applications for forfeiture of the proceeds of crime contained in chapter five and chapter six of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act of 1998. This Act, in particular the provisions on forfeiture, are highly technical in nature and require in-depth legal knowledge. A brief description of the nature of the two types of forfeiture follows.

Criminal forfeiture

Whenever a defendant is convicted of an offence, it convicting the defendant may, on application of the public prosecutor, enquire into any benefit the defendant may have derived from that offence, or from any other offence of which the defendant has been convicted at the same trial, or from any criminal activity which the court finds to be sufficiently related to those offences.

If the court finds the defendant has so benefited, it may, in addition to any punishment which it may impose in respect of the offence, make an order against the defendant for the payment to the state of any amount it considers appropriate. This is known as a confiscation order. The court may make any further order as it may deem fit to ensure the effectiveness and fairness of that order.

The National Director may by way of an ex parte application apply to a competent High Court for an order prohibiting any person from dealing in any manner with any property mentioned in the order. The order is known as a restraint order.

The High Court may make such an order when a prosecution for an offence has been instituted against the defendant concerned and either a confiscation order has been made against the defendant; or it appears there are reasonable grounds for believing that a confiscation order may be made against the defendant and proceedings against that defendant have not been concluded.

It may also make such an order when the court is satisfied that a person is to be charged with an offence and it appears to the court there are reasonable grounds for believing that a confiscation order may be made against such person. Where a confiscation order has been made against the defendant, and the order is no longer subject to review or appeal, and the proceedings against the defendant have not been concluded, the court may appoint a curator bonis and authorise that curator bonis to realise any realisable property.

Civil forfeiture

Where reasonable grounds exist to believe the property is an instrumentality of an offence or the proceeds of unlawful activities, a preservation order prohibiting anyone from dealing in any way with the property may then be granted by the High Court, on application by the National Director, on the basis of those grounds.

The National Director of Public Prosecutions may then apply for a forfeiture order, which the court must grant if it finds on a balance of probabilities that the property is an instrumentality of an offence or the proceeds of unlawful activities. An ‘instrumentality of an offence’ means any property, which is concerned in the commission of an offence. The offence can have been committed at any time, and need not have occurred in South Africa. The ‘proceeds of unlawful activities’ means any property or benefit received in connection with or as a result of any unlawful activity.

Any person can carry on the unlawful activity. The property or benefit need not have been received in South Africa, nor need it have been received after the act came into force. On the date when a forfeiture order takes effect, the property subject to the order is forfeited to the state and vests in a court-appointed curator bonis on behalf of the state. Upon the forfeiture order taking effect the curator bonis may take possession of that property on behalf of the state from any person in possession, or entitled to possession, of the property.

It is generally known that the AFU has no investigative capacity. The unit consists entirely of legal professionals well versed in the provisions relating to forfeiture, and experienced in court work. The AFU is consequently entirely reliant on the detective service, or the DSO, to both identify possible assets for forfeiture or defendants against whom forfeiture applications may be brought, as well as to provide sufficient evidence on the basis of which the forfeiture applications may be successful. Without good evidence, the AFU is powerless to be successful in its work. As can be seen from the descriptions of the two types of forfeiture application above, good investigative work is essential to the successful operation of the AFU.

As a result, the AFU has retained good relations with both the detective service and the DSO. This has been possible because the AFU does not compete with either body, and indeed, works with them to make headline-grabbing good news items. The AFU has also been assiduous, under former head Willie Hofmeyr, in cultivating good relations with both structures.

In August 2001 all the heads of the sAPS' organised crime units attended a week-long UN-sponsored training session, at which the AFU explained the legislation in detail and outlined ways in which the organised crime units could further make use of the AFU's expertise in combating organised crime.

Performance of the AFU

The AFU recorded some early well-publicised failures. However, this was largely as a resul t of an oversight of the legislature. To use the legal terminology, the courts found that chapter five could not operate retrospectively.

In the Basson case, for example, the court said Basson could not receive a confiscation order, as that punishment was not in effect at the time he committed his crimes. He consequently also cannot have a restraint order made against him, as there are no grounds for believing a confiscation order will ever be made against him. Judge Roux therefore overturned the restraint order originally made. Shortly after judgment was given in the Basson matter, however, parliament passed an amendment act expressly to make the entire act retrospective.

The act has the potential to be a powerful weapon. By February 2001, the unit had initiated 56 seizures of which 49 were in place.76 To give examples, in October 1999 the state was granted an order by the High Court in Durban to seize assets amounting to R10m of one Ronnie Johnny Smith. In the same month the High Court in Umtata granted an order to seize assets amounting to R750,000 of a couple, Nolundi Yanta and Tabo Petrus Peter, who allegedly defrauded the Eastern Cape welfare department of nearly R1m in social grant money.

By February 2001, a total of 15 forfeitures had been completed, in relation to assets to the value of R7.2m.77 While R1.1m has been paid to victims, only R145,000 has completed its journey into the fund created by the act78: in March 2000, drug money was successfully forfeited to the state after a vehicle was searched. Traces of drugs on the money provided the state with enough evidence to satisfy the burden of proof. The forfeiture was not contested in court.

These successes should not be seen just as success of the unit, but as success of the detective service and the DSO, where those units have assisted with investigations. As it becomes more and more difficult to secure convictions, especially of those involved in organised crime, performance indicators will have to take note of work done in respect of forfeitures and the success of that work.

Other intelligence structures

South Africa’s intelligence structures, apart from the crime intelligence component of the SAPS, are the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), and the South African Secret Service (SASS), and Military Intelligence (MI).

Crime intelligence forms a distinct branch of the SAPS. In the past crime intelligence was part of the detective service. It now covers crime information analysis and crime information management. Crime information analysis refers to the collating and analysis of crime statistics and information collected from station level upwards. Crime information management refers to the identification of threats and determination of priorities.

The Intelligence Review Commission of 1997 examined both the present and future roles of NIA and SASS. In line with the recommendations of the commission, the then Minister of Justice, Dullah Omar, subsequently announced that NIA and SASS would continue to function as independent services. 79

NIA would continue to operate as a domestic intelligence service and SASS as a foreign intelligence service.80 Both services would however intensify their efforts to collect intelligence on crime to support the SAPS’ crime intelligence task.81 In other words, their roles were expanded to include the gathering of intelligence around crime generally.

Defence intelligence or MI receives only 1% of the defence budget over the medium term. Detail on spending on NIA and SASS is not listed as a separate item in the national budget and such information is not generally available to the public. However, it is believed expenditure in the Defence Special Account is often in respect of equipment for intelligence services.

In the transformation process which these intelligence structures, in particular NIA, underwent in the post 1994 period, the skills of many individuals, and their networks of informants, were lost.82 At the same time, the framework under which these structures were required to operate changed radically. Greater limits are now in place governing how intelligence operatives may act.83 Furthermore, no longer is it sufficient simply to aim to gather accurate and complete information, as the new priority on gathering intelligence relative to crime makes clear.84

At every stage of an investigation, it must now be borne in mind that there is the possibility of the need to convict in a court of law. Every piece of information gathered must therefore be viewed as a potential piece of evidence. Evidence which is not admissible or of no probative value is no longer very useful. The goal must now always be to gather as much information as possible that will be used to prove the elements of a particular offence, that will be admissible in a court of law.85 This is important for the detective service, as such intelligence work could be of great assistance to detectives.

Where eventual prosecution is the goal, rather than mere elimination or information gathering for its own sake, evidence that will be rejected by the judiciary, or which does not contribute to proving an element of an offence, is not much use. Incomplete, inaccurate, inaccessible or unusable information is a powerless weapon in the fight against. The information gathered by each agency can be enhanced, complemented and possibly verified through formal co-operation agreements. Skills and resources can also be shared to ensure their maximum utilisation.

To date, it appears that intelligence services are struggling to meet the challenge of assisting the detective service and the DSO in the investigation of crime.86 To begin with, co-operation between various bodies is often ad hoc despite the existence of formal structures. The lesgislation which provides for the powers and functions of the DSO details the establishment of a Ministerial Co-ordinating Committee (MICOC) to co-ordinate the activities of the SAPS detective service and the DSO. To date this body is not running and there is no policy form the SAPS regarding co-operation with the DSO.

Other intelligence structures include the national intelligence co-ordinating committee, provincial intelligence co-ordinating committee and area intelligence co-ordinating committee, as well as national, provincial, area and local operational co-ordinating committees. These structures have cascaded down from clusters at ministerial level, in other words, the Defence, Justice, Correctional Services, Safety and Security and Welfare clusters. However, it is unclear whether these structures are serving their functions properly.

Furthermore, intelligence operatives are struggling to adapt to the new climate in terms of evidence and rights. There is often over-reliance on single informants, with little effort to corroborate the information supplied by such sources. This leaves the intelligence service open to manipulation and the gathering of weak information.

There is also a lack of recognition of the importance and urgency of certain information. Analysis of information often occurs weeks or months after it was gathered, with the result that early warnings are often missed. Intelligence operatives are also not always careful to operate entirely within the law. This is problematic when their evidence is necessary to secure a conviction. The mindset that intelligence information is used simply to inform the president, parliament, or government about the state of the nation, rather than to be used in the fight against crime, also seems to be difficult to break.

The failure of operation Boleas in Lesotho in September 1998 was attributed by senior Defence Chiefs to a failure of intelligence. 87 All of the weaknesses and problems with the operation of intelligence structures mentioned above, were highlighted during the period 1998-2000 during the many terror bomb attacks on Cape Town.88 While many arrests have been made and prosecutions are now pending, to date only one conviction in connection with these terrorist bombings has occurred, and prior to the arrests intelligence failed to predict more than 20 attacks. It remains to be seen whether intelligence structures have learnt lessons from these experiences.

The Independent Complaints Directorate

The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) was established in April 1997. It investigates complaints lodged against the police regarding any misconduct or an offence committed by a member, and deaths in police custody.89 In addition to deaths, the ICD has prioritised the investigation of cases of police corruption, and incidents of family violence alleged against members of the SAPS.90

To give an indication of the ICD's work load: The latest available figures show that the ICD investigated 209 deaths in police custody between April 1999 and March 2000. During the same period the directorate investigated afurther 472 deaths as a resulf of police action.91 Prior to that between April and October 1999, the ICD received 2,359 complaints, including 389 related to deaths. Of the 2,359 cases, 1,610 were investigated or referred elsewhere for investigation. Over the same period 37 criminal trials were instituted and judgments were handed down in 16, with nine convictions. In addition, 83 disciplinary hearings commenced and four others were finalised.92

The ICD's budget is a separate budget vote before parliament - Vote 21 - and R26,715,000 was voted towards the entity for 2001-2001. While the ICD is separate from the SAPS (and therefore the detective service) and makes use of its own investigators, capacity constraints imply that cases are referred to other institutions - includingthe SAPS - for investigation.93

Indeed, the ICD, after preliminary investigation, investigates 'only those cases which cannot be investigated by the SAPS or other agencies'.94 In other words, the default position is that the detective service must investigate the bulk of cases. The ICD has only 45 investigators and in 2001 budgeted only R10,784,000 for its investigation of complaints sub programme.95

Lack of funds is a serious problem for the ICD. In certain instances investigators were not able to reach crime scenes due to a lack of petrol. Investigators have been limited to 1,000km per car, and airtime for investigators' cell phones was limited to R100 per month during 2000.96 The ICD during 2000 was unable to pay overtime and instead offered investigators unremunerated time off, which is counter productive. Ten posts vacant in the ICD were frozen, and funds were transferred from personnel to cover operational costs. The situation became so dire that operations were halted by the end of November 2000.97

Of the 3,283 complaints finalised during 1990/2000, only 414 were fully investigated to completion by the ICD. The Director of Public Prosecutions agreed to prosecute in 50 cases, 29 of which resulted in convictions and eight in acquittals. A further 201 cases are awaiting a decision. In a further 84 cases inquests were ordered.98

From the figures it is clear that the majority of cases must indeed have been referred to the detective service for investigation. Clearly, it is not appropriate that the detective service of the SAPS investigate complaints against fellow members and deaths allegedly caused by members of the SAPS. Given the already heavy case load experienced by most detectives, it is unlikely that such cases will be properly investigated.

Furthermore, given the untenable position of the anti-corruption units within the newly formed organised crime units of the detective service discussed above, it is worrying that these two bodies - put in place to assure the accountability of the SAPS - are in a position whre much of their work actually reverts back to the detective service.

Given that the declared intention of the detective restructuring is to deploy the majority of members of the detective service to station level, the difficulty experienced by such detectives, who may be required to investigate colleagues, will simply be compounded.

The precarious position of the ICD and the anti-corruption units must be addressed if the SAPS is not to suffer further in terms of public credibility. The detective service should not be placed in the untenable position of bearing the responsibility of investigating colleagues.