STATEMENT RE VIP PROTECTION

Issued by: Commissioner of SA Police

PRETORIA: 1997-03-26

The spate of thefts from the homes of the President, Deputy President and Cabinet Ministers necessitates urgent and incisive measures to address the situation.

This crime must be halted before it contaminates the reputation of the entire 2000-strong VIP protection component, the vast majority of whom are honest and hardworking officials.

I have therefore directed that two specific processes immediately be applied to National Protection Services - the component responsible for VIP protection - viz:

• Screening and re-evaluation will in future be done on a more frequent but unpredictable and random basis on both specific and randomly-selected individuals tasked with close and static protection of the President, Deputy President and other high-level VIP's.

This process includes psychometric and polygraph (lie detector) testing and other relevant screening processes on individuals, their background and personal circumstances.

These tests will be specifically focused to determine potential security risks, crime susceptibility and the mental and physical condition of individuals.

In addition, those personnel who deal deal directly with threat analyses of their clients, will be more closely integrated into the activities of SAPS crime intelligence to improve efficiency.

• An investigation into the restructuring and revitalisation of that part of NPS tasked with static protection (guards) of the residences of the President and Cabinet Ministers will be launched.

This investigation will closely examine the deployment, working conditions and procedures of the officials involved because all known incidents all within this sub-component.

This investigation will also aim at improving the cost-effectiveness of the NPS.

This investigation is almost complete and a full report will be submitted to me, for possible referral of some of the recommendations to the Cabinet.