Parliament’s Select Committee on Security and Justice has completed its review of the South African Police Service’s 2025/26 annual report and voiced deep concern over recurring audit findings by the Auditor-General. Its warning is blunt: clean financial statements alone cannot disguise failures in governance, compliance and service delivery.
The committee’s assessment comes despite the service securing its sixth consecutive unqualified audit opinion on its financial statements. Committee Chairperson Ms Jane Seboletswe Mananiso stressed that this streak of financial cleanliness should not be read as institutional health. “Behaviour and cultural change are important in the institution,” she said.
At the centre of the committee’s alarm sits a sharp deterioration in the reliability of reported performance information. Material findings in this area rose by 35.71 per cent, from 14 findings in the previous cycle to 19. According to the Auditor-General’s report, adequate supporting evidence was frequently absent, meaning reported achievements in critical operational areas, including 10111 emergency call centre handle ratios, firearm recovery and detective detection rates, were overstated, unverifiable or materially inaccurate. “This is extremely concerning,” Ms Mananiso said.
What the findings point to, in the chairperson’s words, are severe control breakdowns that continue to plague internal administration and operations, supply chain management and consequence management. The Auditor-General identified a new material irregularity concerning the ineffectiveness and underutilisation of the Investigation Case Docket Management System, alongside ongoing material irregularities tied to forensic examination delays, unlawful detentions exceeding 48 hours and struggling 10111 command centres. Non-compliance with procurement prescripts also drove up irregular expenditure, which the committee read as a systemic failure to implement effective preventative controls and post-audit action plans.
Questions of capacity and technology featured prominently in the committee’s deliberations. Members argued that these must be prioritised because of their direct bearing on crime fighting and public safety. “The SAPS must look at the whole ecosystem of digitising its workflow. They must procure a system that is fit for purpose and that is integrated,” Ms Mananiso said.
Meanwhile, the committee took note of remarks by Prof Firoz Cachalia, the Acting Minister of Police, who said performance targets must be realistic. It confirmed its ongoing commitment to critically assess the department’s annual performance plans, and it acknowledged that the service has a recovery plan addressing fleet strategy and infrastructure management, intended to turn the institution around.
On the resourcing side, the committee welcomed Finance Minister Mr Enoch Godongwana’s allocation, announced the day before, of R186 million to boost investigations and forensic capacity. It nonetheless demanded that these funds be directed at immediate and critical challenges such as fleet management turnaround times, and said it will closely monitor how the money is spent. The committee further called for urgent accountability on lifestyle audits, vacancies and intergovernmental friction between the police service and the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure.
Several committee members urged the service to prioritise Community Policing Forums, which they noted assist with crime prevention on the ground, Ms Mananiso reported.
Oversight will not end with the review itself. The committee has requested a post-audit action plan from the service covering all commitments made at the meeting. Ms Mananiso closed with the committee’s insistence on rigorous internal reforms, particularly in light of the Madlanga Commission and parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee testimonies, and its expectation of a drastic improvement in future audit outcomes. Whether the next audit cycle shows that improvement will be the test of the reforms now demanded.