SAPS REPORT CARD 2025-2026: Cops on a hot tin roof: how scandals pummel SAPS’ plans

A controversial contract’s cancellation meant mandatory medical assessments of thousands of potential police trainees could not be carried out.

This could have crushed the plans of the South African Police Service (SAPS), but instead it has turned to the military to deal with its medical evaluations for now.

The measures that South Africa’s police managers are implementing to steer their way around unprecedented scandals and related turbulence became clearer in Parliament on Wednesday, 7 October.

During a police committee meeting, the SAPS outlined its latest annual report, ­covering the period from 1 April last year to 31 March this year.

What became obvious is that apart from ­facing transnational crime that is posing a growing threat to South Africa, police ­managers have had to adjust quickly to extra work demands.

They have done this while coping with ­colleagues being suspended and criminally charged, and with suspicions of deep-rooted corruption among them being aired in detail in public.

On Wednesday it also emerged that: Alleged corruption temporarily cost the country 5,500 entry-level trainee police officers – posts for which more than one million people applied. This will be countered during the current financial year.

There is an average of one police officer for every 417 residents of South Africa and there are plans to boost staffing.

Detectives, some of whom have intense docket loads, are leaving their jobs in provinces with high crime rates. Attempts are being made to bring back some of those who have already left.

Lifestyle audits conducted on police officers are picking up anomalies.

Crisis and damage control

Speaking during Wednesday’s meeting in Parliament, acting national police commissioner Lieutenant General Puleng Dimpane emphasised that management was being tightened with a focus on accountability.

“All our problems circle back to command and control,” she acknowledged.

South Africa’s law enforcement scandal, which has spawned several offshoot controversies, erupted in July 2025 when KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi made a series of startling accusations.

He said that a cartel, later identified as the Big Five, had infiltrated the criminal justice system, politics and the private sector.

Two inquiries, the Madlanga Commission as well as an ad hoc parliamentary committee, were established to investigate his accusations. The inquiries are now starting to wrap up their work.

Evidence that has emerged from the Madlanga Commission and related investigations has resulted in several law enforcers being arrested and criminally charged.

‘Shadow of Madlanga’

The public impact of all this on the police service was outlined on Wednesday.

The SAPS presentation on its latest annual report explained: “The year was materially shaped by [the Madlanga Commission and ad hoc committee].”

It said the service cooperated with both hearings, providing documents, giving technical support, coordinating responses and managing information requests.

“These activities placed additional demands on management, governance and operational capacity, and necessitated interim governance and management arrangements in certain operational environments,” the presentation said.

Read more: Mkhwanazi’s ‘too grave to contemplate’ allegations gain grim weight

Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia was present during Wednesday’s meeting.

He said: “We are living in the shadow of the Madlanga moment.”

He added that the commission had created the impression, and exposed the partial reality, that “the police leadership has been destabilised”.

But Cachalia said Wednesday’s meeting on the annual report showed that “a team of highly competent police officers led by General Dimpane” was strengthening the police.

Chopped, changed, charged

Neither Cachalia nor Dimpane fill their posts permanently, though, which underscores how the police leadership has been destabilised and points to the scandals tearing through the heavily burdened SAPS.

Cachalia took over as police minister from Senzo Mchunu last year because Mkhwanazi’s collusion accusations had implicated Mchunu (who denied any wrongdoing).

Dimpane was appointed to act as national commissioner when the country’s policing head, Fannie Masemola, was sidelined after being criminally charged in April this year.

Masemola had faced four charges of contravening the Public Finance Management Act in a case focused on a police health tender dubiously awarded in 2024 to organised crime accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala’s company, Medicare 24 Tshwane District.

Read more: Masemola cleared in Cat Matlala tender scandal, Johnson-era Idac cases reviewed

The tender was budgeted at R360-million, and it was alleged that due to collusion with police officers, Matlala’s company was awarded the contract for R228-million.

It was subsequently cancelled.

Matlala, a central figure in the country’s broader law enforcement scandal, and others, including various police officers, still face criminal charges over the tender.

As for Masemola, he was cleared of criminal charges last month, so he is no longer a co-accused alongside Matlala, who also faces separate criminal charges, including attempted murder.

(The case against Masemola was driven by the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, whose head at the time, Andrea Johnson, resigned as accusations against her mounted in another offshoot scandal.)

Zero trainees

Some of the impact that the Matlala contract had on the police service became more apparent on Wednesday.

A section of the SAPS annual report presentation reflected human resource issues.

It showed that on 30 June last year, the police advertised 5,500 trainee posts and received more than a million applications by the closing date the following month.

Read more: Inside Cat Matlala’s R360m police tender that ‘shouldn’t have been awarded’

“Recruitment processes for 6,125 applicants were completed, and candidates were ready to proceed to medical assessment,” the presentation said.

Funding had been secured but the process hit a massive snag.

“The planned February 2026 enlistment could not proceed because the health risk manager’s contract was terminated and the mandatory medical assessments could not be completed,” the presentation said.

It added that an “interim mitigation” plan involved engaging the South African National Defence Force “to conduct the required medical evaluations.”

In short, none of the 5,500 entry-level trainees was enlisted. Dimpane told Parliament that this was “mainly because of the contract issue”.

She confirmed: “Yes, I will say it. Yes, it is the Matlala contract issue.”

Dimpane said investigations and “all the troubles” that went along with them “really affected our work in terms of the 5,500”.

She said that to make up for what had happened, the 5,500 posts would be included in the current financial year, when a total of 11,000 trainee posts would be available.

Losing and clawing back detectives

Managers viewed the detective division as a priority area needing attention.

Last week, it emerged that the Auditor-General had found that work allocation among detectives was uneven, with some officers managing 600 to 800 dockets each.

There were also succession problems.

Of the 3,294 detectives in South Africa, 1,227 had five years or less experience in the police service.

Additional details about detectives emerged when the SAPS outlined its annual report in Parliament this week.

Read more: 800 dockets for one detective, undermined forensic services — Auditor-General’s critical SAPS findings

Just more than a thousand – 1,031 – detectives had left the service over a year. Among them, there were 245 exits in Gauteng, 153 in KwaZulu-Natal, 141 in the Western Cape and 122 in the Eastern Cape.

The presentation said: “These attrition patterns highlight continued pressure
on detective capacity in exactly those provinces carrying the highest crime weight, and underline the need for sustained recruitment, retention and workforce stabilisation interventions within the detective environment.”

There were plans to provide more capacity to the detective services. Dimpane explained that this included recruiting detectives who had previously left the police.

She emphasised that this was being done with “stringent vetting”.

Sibiya and Khan

While SAPS managers were explaining these issues in Parliament on Wednesday, the police officer who was in control of all the dockets in South Africa, including those that detectives were trying to juggle, was in the dock in court.

This is yet another example of the various scandals cutting into the SAPS from different directions.

The deputy national commissioner of crime detection, Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya, was in the dock in the Randburg magistrates’ court trying to secure his release on bail.

He previously told Parliament: “All dockets in the country at all police stations fall under my responsibility.”

Read more: Sibiya’s grand fall from grace — from directing dockets to sex predator accused

Sibiya was arrested last month and now faces several charges including rape, human trafficking and sexually grooming a child.

These alleged incidents happened between May and August this year, when Sibiya was already under investigative scrutiny because of serious accusations levelled against him at the Madlanga Commission.

Sibiya is also facing internal police disciplinary processes.

Read more: Feroz Khan’s commission testimony postponed after uncle murdered

Meanwhile, his former colleague Feroz Khan, who held a senior position in Crime Intelligence, was fired from the SAPS last month.

Khan, who was wounded in a shooting earlier this year, was meant to have testified before the Madlanga Commission, where serious accusations, linked to tweaked tenders and associations with a tobacco boss and politician, were made against him.

His health after the shooting meant his testimony was delayed. It was scheduled to start privately this week, but was postponed again because Khan’s uncle was murdered in a shooting in Johannesburg on Monday.

The SAPS presentation to Parliament touched on corruption in the police. It said that 72% of reported corruption allegations – 41 of 57 – had resulted in disciplinary hearings being launched.

“Corruption matters frequently involve financial irregularities, abuse of authority and procurement-related conduct requiring extensive investigation and verification before hearings can be initiated,” the presentation said.

Read more: SA’s cocaine shame: How cops ‘bungled’ global trafficking cases

These were the kinds of allegations the Madlanga Commission heard about from witnesses, including several police officers.

The commission also heard of several suspicions about how certain police officers, intentionally or negligently, have impeded massive drug cases.

The SAPS is grappling with these issues while transnational organised crime is squeezing tighter.

Cocaine, meth and cartels

Statistics revealed in Parliament this week showed that nearly 185% more cocaine had been seized in South Africa in the 2025/26 financial year compared with the previous period. This translated to 2,093kg being seized compared with 736kg previously.

And nearly 50% more crystal methamphetamine – tik – had been confiscated in 2025/26 compared with the previous year.

Daily Maverick has previously reported that over two years, there have been at least five illicit methamphetamine factory crackdowns in South Africa. Suspects including Mexicans have been arrested in those cases. This suggests that Mexican cartels have expanded into South Africa. There is evidence of Mexican encroachment elsewhere in Africa.

Cachalia, speaking in Parliament this week during the police meeting, said he felt that legislation tackling organised crime needed to be strengthened because cartels now had to be taken into consideration.

This is just some of what the SAPS is having to tackle. When the Madlanga Commission submits its final report to President Cyril Ramaphosa – which is scheduled for January next year – it will contain recommendations that will undoubtedly spark even more policing upheaval. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R39. The e-edition of DM168 is now free for readers who are signed into their Daily Maverick account. Click on the cover of the newspaper below to access the e-edition.