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POLICE Minister Bheki Cele has revealed that more than 10,000 officers have faced disciplinary action after being charged with murder, rape and assault since 2012.
Cele revealed this when he was responding to parliamentary questions on the number of SAPS members in each province who were accused of violent misconduct.
The violent misconduct acts include death as a result of police action, rape by a police officer and torture or assault.
DA MP Andrew Whitfield asked the minister to provide details on the number of cases and suspensions pending an investigation by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate from the 2012/13 financial year until 2020/21.
In his response, Cele said 10,086 officers have been charged, but only 50 faced suspension since 2012/13.
The statistics showed that the Eastern Cape leads with the highest number of cases with a combined figure of 2,175 cases over the nine-year period.
The Western Cape is second with 2,057 cases, followed by the Free State at 1,287 and the North West at 1,142.
Limpopo has the lowest number of disciplinary cases at 388.
The figures supplied by Cele do not show the breakdown according to provinces of the police officers that were suspended during the period.
However, in 2012/13 the number of officers charged with violent misconduct was 549, the following year the figure stood at 606.
Cases more than doubled to 1,392 in 2014/15.
Cele’s statistics show a significant jump in cases in 2014/15 to 2,010 in 2015/16.
This figure, however, dropped to 1,375 in the following year.
There was an even bigger decline in 2017/18 when numbers dropped to 864, but this was short-lived as cases spiked again in 2018/19 at 1,146.
In 2019/20 there was a slight increase to 1,182, but this dropped again to 962 for the 2020/21 year.
– Political Bureau
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