Minister vague on crucial police matters
The Minister of Police is being vague and selective in terms of which parliamentary questions he decides to answer. Whilst we are pleased he has finally begun responding timeously, the quality of replies has been questionable.
This week, I received four replies to parliamentary questions which I had submitted recently. The first two were sufficiently detailed, the other two however were either deliberately withholding information or the Minister's department is failing to keep records.
I asked the Minister of Police how many SAPS members had undergone fitness assessments and whether any had failed. The reply did not even correspond to the question.
The second question posed to the Minister was the number of occult-related crimes which have occurred in the last financial year following reports in the Daily Sun that the Occult-Related Crime Unit was to be re-established. We were told the information is not readily available.
This has been a growing trend over the last few months. Previously, replies were given with great detail and we were never told that this would involve ‘considerable man hours'.