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A logo of the SAPS seen at a police station.
South Africa does not have the necessary policing resources to stop corruption in the S0uth African Police Service (SAPS) ranks according to crime expert and director of IRS Investigations, Chad Thomas.
His remarks come after the arrest of two police officers who were allegedly involved in the hijacking of a G4S truck earlier this month.
Two civilians have also been arrested in connection with the hijacking.
Thomas believes there are serious problems within the SAPS.
“We don’t have the right policing at the moment to combat corruption and to combat the bad elements that are within the police. So, when police go rogue, they go really really bad. When one looks at IPID, they’ve got a few hundred members of which only a few are actual investigators,” says Thomas.
“They’re currently sitting with 5 000 current investigations and a backlog of 14 000 investigations. So, we just don’t have the resources. Understand it’s a small percentage of police officers that are bad apples but those bad apples understand the system is under such strain that there’s more of a chance of them getting away with a crime than being held to account for a crime,” he adds.
PODCAST | Thomas speaks to SAfm
