By Johnathan Paoli
Suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has blamed the South African Police Service’s lack of combat and intelligence capacity for the country’s persistent violent crime, saying the crisis justified his structural reforms and the controversial disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT).
Appearing before the Parliament’s ad-hoc committee, Mchunu said the decision to dissolve the PKTT was part of a broader reorganisation plan intended to strengthen operational policing nationwide, not to undermine specialised investigations into political killings.
“SAPS doesn’t have good capacity on the combative side. That’s why problems on the Cape Flats persist, because the police don’t have the machinery to fight the gangs,” Mchunu said.
Mchunu described the police service as overstretched, underfunded and technologically backward.
“Visible policing takes up 53% of the budget and it is under one divisional commissioner, who can’t take charge of each station and run each of the task teams.
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