The Independent Police Investigative Directorate, which is tasked with holding police officers accountable in the Eastern Cape, is facing a crisis of its own, with concerns over capacity and effectiveness.
Despite a province-wide mandate, there is just one fully operational IPID office serving millions of residents from a single location in East London. This is in stark contrast to the seven offices that are meant to be in place across the province, including major centres such as Gqeberha, Mthatha, Queenstown and Port St Johns.
In response to a parliamentary question from the Democratic Alliance, Community Safety MEC, Xolile Nqatha, revealed that there are only twenty-six staff currently employed, barely enough to handle the wave of complaints received every year.
Case volumes remain stubbornly high, with 730 complaints lodged in 2020/21, 598 in 2021/22, 501 in 2022/23 and 571 in the last financial year for which data is available. Yet backlogs continue to grow, with over 1,500 cases now outstanding and many complaints from previous years still unresolved.
The reports tell a story of a system buckling under its own weight, unable to keep pace as complaints continue to mount and new backlogs are carried forward from one year to the next.
Nqatha confirmed that just over three hundred cases were marked as decision-ready last year, a rate that falls far short of addressing the demand.
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Residents are left with the bitter reality that a single office, operating from a business park in East London, is responsible for investigating police abuses across the province.
Consultative meetings between IPID, the Department of Community Safety, SAPS and the Metro Police have so far produced little change for the people who rely on these institutions for justice. Quarterly forums come and go, but the fundamental problem remains the same: without proper resources, IPID cannot fulfil its mandate, and police officers who abuse their power are less likely to be held accountable.
The DA is urging MEC Nqatha to provide a full breakdown of steps being taken to remedy this crisis, including timelines for opening the outstanding offices, the recruitment of staff, and measures to clear the case backlog.
People in the Eastern Cape deserve an independent and effective body to investigate police misconduct, not empty promises and year-on-year increases in unresolved complaints. Without meaningful reform, the very system designed to safeguard our rights risks becoming yet another barrier to justice.