The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

The report in this morning's Sunday Times of numerous instances of crime statistics manipulation, including instances of the police failing to open dockets in cases involving child rape and other serious offences, illustrates precisely why urgent action is needed on empowering the police watchdog, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD).

This report serves as further evidence of the ongoing manipulation of crime statistics at many South African police stations, and verifies the findings of an internal police report that was leaked to the Mail & Guardian in October, which made note of the fact that "a substantial number of stations are involved in manipulation".

This morning's report includes reference to the police's failure to open a docket into a suspect's alleged rape of five primary school students on a single day, and the fact that the ICD is now scrutinising 1000 more dockets in the Western Cape, after MEC Lennit Max exposed how police officers were registering complaints as inquiries rather than criminal cases on the police database in order to fudge the figures.

It also follows the ICD's investigation of Mountain Rise police station in KwaZulu-Natal, where 12 officials, including the station commissioner, have now been charged with tampering with crime statistics. The ICD descended on the station on November 13 last year, and found evidence that crime statistics from this station had been manipulated. They found 170 unregistered dockets hidden in a room, containing cases ranging from fraud to vehicle theft. This action was as a consequence of a complaint I lodged with the ICD, after I had received information from a whistleblower.

Our best hope now is to give the ICD all of the investigative powers it needs. I will be writing to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, Ms Lydia Chikunga, to ask her to put the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) Bill at the top of the agenda for next year. The current programme for the committee does not include ICD legislation on the agenda for the first term at all. Judging by the order of the Committee's strategic plan, the review of this Bill may well be bumped out in favour of others such as the National Key Points Bill or the Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorist and Related Activities Bill, for at least a year.

The Democratic Alliance has for the last two years been calling for legislative measures to empower the ICD. Finally, the Secretariat of Police stated in a meeting before the Private Members Legislative Proposals and Special Petitions Committee in October - where I proposed amendments to the SAPS Act to bolster the ICD - that legislation dealing with the ICD was being drafted and would be ready by next year. If we are to give the police watchdog the full power it needs to scrutinise indiscretions and hold officers to account, we need to capacitate and strengthen this body.

The ICD received 6119 complaints against SAPS members last year, which is a 16% increase in complaints since 2005. Yet only 10% of all ICD recommendations are implemented by the SAPS - down from 42% last year - which suggests accountability and oversight is being increasingly neglected. As long as this is the case, the manipulation of crime statistics and other errant behaviour can never be properly tackled.