Africa-Press – South-Africa. With a dwindling budget for visible policing, the police have spent around R5.7 million to “ensure safety and security” at party political events since 1 April, with the vast majority, R4.6 million, spent on ANC events.
DA MP Andrew Whitfield asked Police Minister Bheki Cele in a parliamentary question whether the police had rendered security services at conferences and any other political party events and what the costs were.
Cele answered: “It must be noted that the South African Police Service [SAPS] did not render security services per se but rather their involvement was to ensure the safety and security of the events, i.e., policing services.”
He also presented a table listing the political events according to province.
No mention was made of any events in KwaZulu-Natal. Several events were listed as not costing the police anything, being labelled as “No Cost, Line Function”. All the events in the Western Cape and Northern Cape had this label.
Apart from the R5 626 692.74 spent on rallies and conferences of the ANC, DA and EFF, there was also R20 000 for a rally simply labelled the Siyabonga Rally on 29 October 2021 – both the ANC and EFF had rallies with this name.
A further R60 000 was spent on the ANC-aligned MKMVA national conference and Sadtu conference from 27 April to 1 May this year.
A total of R4 661 705.87 was spent on 17 ANC events at an average of R274 217.99 per event.
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Curiously, almost half of this amount – R2 240 056 – was spent in Mpumalanga between March and August this year alone.
This includes the biggest total for any single event on the list, R1.5 million for the ANC Mpumalanga provincial congress in March.
The Gert Sibande and Nkangala regional conferences in April cost the police R215 402 and Nkangala R185 556, respectively.
The provincial general council at Badplaas in July cost R135 728 and the provincial youth conference last month R177 798.
Other notable police expenses for ANC events are R769 155.57 for the North West provincial congress in August, R328 556 for the Gauteng provincial congress in June and R695 000 for the national policy conference in July.
The police only incurred costs for two DA events, the party’s final rallies before the 2019 elections, at R41 000, and the 2021 elections at R24 000, for a total of R65 000.
The EFF’s eight events cost R899 986.87 at an average of R112 498.36 per event.
More than half of the total amount is the R459 000 spent on the party’s national conference in December 2019.
An EFF rally in the Free State in July cost the police R200 976.49. It was also the only event listed for the Free State.
The thin blue line gets thinner as visible policing budget continues to shrink
The police’s total budget for the 2022/23 financial year is R100.695 billion, compared to the previous year’s R100.474 billion. However, despite the nominal increase of about R225 million, their allocation in real terms decreased by R4.1 billion.
The budget cuts are felt hardest in the police’s visible policing programme. The visible policing budget for 2022/23 is R51.716 billion, a drop of R508 million.
The police’s Protection and Security Services – which includes the VIP Protection Unit – get R3.496 billion for the year, an increase of R35 million.
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