Africa-Press – South-Africa. THE SAPS came in for a lot of flak after it emerged that it was likely to under-spend on its budget when the financial year ends next month.
MPs heard that the SAPS recorded 79% expenditure of the R100 billion budget as at January 31.
The chief financial officer (CFO), Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane, said as at January 31, R80bn of the R100bn budget had been spent.
Dimpane said they were making strides towards ensuring that they imposed measures to circumvent the challenge they were experiencing.
DA MP Okkie Terblanche noted with concern that the SAPS recorded under-expenditure in the last financial year.
“We are heading for another under expenditure. The police were unable to spend in respect of their allocation the previous financial year yet we are saying we do not have a sufficient budget,” Terblanche said.
Police Minister Bheki Cele said the question of under-spending was concerning to his ministry, the community at large and police management.
“There are figures that don’t look well. When you are under budgeted, it is really unacceptable that the budget is also under utilised by SAPS, especially on sensitive areas like public policing, detectives and intelligence,” Cele said.
Deputy national commissioner Francinah Vuma confirmed that they had been experiencing to some extent some under expenditure.
“We are really experiencing dependencies in some of our expenditures in the environment of facility management and IT space.
“We really had challenges in machinery and equipment,” Vuma said.
She also said they had placed orders with vehicle manufacturers but they had to cancel them because manufacturers experienced challenges with car parts being not available.
“We have been able to be assisted by looking at other manufacturers. It is over R2bn earmarked for the purchase of vehicles,” she said.
Dimpane said the actual spending on compensation of employees stood at 82% and was marginally lower than anticipated.
“Various human resources priorities are still to be processed at different intervals,” she said.
Dimpane also said the spending on goods and services was at 75% of the allocated budget with integrated criminal justice strategy spending very low.
She also said the vehicle licence renewal payments were slightly lower than estimated, but some renewal periods were closer to the end of the financial year.
The CFO stated that payments for Polmed Covid-19 and injuries on duty were still to be resolved.
Dimpane told the MPs that payments for capital assets comprised 36.2% of the allocated budget.
“Buildings and infrastructure spending was very low at 20.9%. Public Works invoices are lower than anticipated and network infrastructure deliveries and payments still to realise.”
Dimpane also said there was the delayed appointment of consultants for building and infrastructure projects that affected finalisation of the appointment of town planning service panels of consultants.
“Dependency on municipalities, the Department of Rural Development and the Department of Land Affairs for the acquisition of land, rezoning and council resolution is part of the reasons for under spending.
“Illegal encroachment on the sites identified delayed finalisation of projects,” she said.
Dimpane said there were also disruptions as a result of communities demanding 30% of sub-contracting.
There were “regular meetings between the SAPS and the Department of Public Works for interventions and progress on projects”.
Vuma said the funds that were likely to be under-spent would be redirected to unfunded priorities.
“We are projecting that, if things go according to plan, we will under-spend by less than a billion,” she said.
POLITICAL BUREAU
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