SAPS forensic science lab damage in Amanzimtoti is catastrophic
Today’s DA oversight visit at a South African Police Service (SAPS) forensic science laboratory in Amanzimtoti revealed that not only was the laboratory flooded during the recent super storm in Durban but has in fact been flooded a further three times.
In fact the laboratory section that is housed in one of four buildings spread about eThekwini is now closed and the 120 staff will be moved to the three other national laboratories in Gauteng, the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape for the foreseeable future. The costs of transporting and housing the staff, as well as moving the thousands of case specimens related predominantly to drugs and rapes, promises to run into the millions.
The DA have therefore submitted Parliamentary Questions to Police Minister, Fikile Mbalula, asking for a firm start and projected completion date of the building of the Provincial Forensic Laboratory in Pinetown. We have also asked what the exact backlog is in terms of crime-related samples in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and South Africa.
We were shocked to find that:
The land purchased eight years ago for the new KZN laboratory lies idle with no bricks laid;
The laboratory staff are spread through four different buildings in the area, rented by Public Works and evidence from almost all KZN crimes is examined here;
The evidence related to 456 drug cases have been washed out to sea, losing thousands of Detective man-hours of work;
The hired buildings where the laboratory staff work are entirely unfit for use and there is zero security in the buildings;
The experts unit that examines biological, chemistry, explosive, questioned documents, scientific analysis and deal with ballistics is housed in a building where the testing of firearms for ballistics has resulted in bullets travelling straight through walls and endangering the lives of other staff; and
The Forensic unit of KZN has just 262 of the 500 it should have.
The outcomes from the Public Works decision to house and keep the laboratory in the building to be flooded four times has had a catastrophic effect on our fight against crime.
The DA will not sit back and watch as the forensic output regresses to the 2013 levels when the DNA and drug analysis backlogs increased by 322% from the previous year.
This only compounds the Health Department’s catastrophic Forensic Chemistry Labs where there is evidence of blood samples related to blood alcohol drunken driving cases being poured down drains, unprocessed toxicology samples and blood alcohol unprocessed post-mortem samples lying untouched for years on end.
These delays by the Police and Health Departments’ labs have a severe impact on our criminal justice system and on victims of crime.
The failure to provide timely and professional analysis of blood samples, rape kits, ballistics and all other evidence results causes delays in the investigation and prosecution of crimes and could result in criminals walking off scot free due to a lack of evidence. Unnatural causes of death can mostly only be investigated once results from the lab have been provided and until this happens, families are left without closure.
It is imperative that evidence from forensic labs is provided professionally and timeously.
Crimes simply cannot be properly investigated and criminals cannot be convicted with evidence. This is hard come by and represents thousands of detective hours.
Photos:
The evidence room that was flooded.
Laboratory staff and DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Police, Dianne Kohler Barnard (middle).
DA Ward Cllr for Amanzimtoti, Cllr Andre Beetge, on the left.
Statement issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Police, 27 October 2017
