FSL OVERSIGHT FEEDBACK

KZN and National South African Police Service Crisis

The Chair of the Portfolio Committee on Police, Ian Cameron, has reported that over R600,000,000 has been spent collectively on ‘repairs’ after floods over the last nine years. Despite this, SAPS continues to stay in the same building.

Cameron shared this not just out of frustration, but out of deep concern for how public resources are being squandered and how mismanagement at the highest levels in SAPS continues to sabotage the criminal justice system.

It is staggering to think that nearly nine years after the KwaZulu-Natal Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in Amanzimtoti first flooded, SAPS is still paying R500,000 a month to lease a building they cannot properly use. The Portfolio Committee on Police recently conducted an oversight visit to the facility, and the findings were both outrageous and depressing.

The Chair emphasised that this is not simply poor infrastructure; it is dereliction of duty. Six flooding incidents since 2016, over R70 million per incident in damage, forensic scientists still drawing salaries while idle, and over 140,000 DNA cases backlogged nationally. Meanwhile, evidence has to be couriered to labs across the country. Every one of these failures has a real human cost — survivors of violent crime are left in limbo, while perpetrators remain free.

What’s worse, the so-called "ongoing discussions" between SAPS and the Department of Public Works have gone nowhere, but the rent continues to be paid. The Chair suggested that there may be corruption involved in this lease agreement, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss that possibility.

The morale of forensic scientists, already in short supply in the country, is understandably shattered. How can professionals take pride in their work when they are denied the ability to actually do it?

This isn’t just bureaucratic incompetence; it’s a direct threat to justice. Thousands of victims will never see their day in court due to these avoidable failures. In many cases, DNA evidence is the only way to ensure convictions. Delaying or destroying that chain of evidence is sabotaging justice itself.

The Portfolio Committee is right to call for a joint session with the Public Works Committee. But one must question why it has taken so long to reach this point, and whether there’s real political will to fix it.

The Chair stressed that accountability must be demanded, not more reports and promises. The cost of this failure is not just financial — it’s societal.

More Feedback to follow