In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Ian Cameron, the Chair of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, shares the shocking findings of his latest oversight visit. He describes finding, at one station, over 30 detectives sharing an office container with only three chairs and one laptop and no official detective telephones. He also details horror findings at two more stations. Cameron says SAPS members are pleading for help. “I've already submitted the reports this morning to both the Minister and the National Commissioner and we will be following it up...” Also discussing the biggest shocks from the Budget Review, Cameron says: “...Only one out of 10 murders are actually detected properly. Remember, it doesn't necessarily mean it is solved or that there's success or prosecution. This is just a complete detection process. So I am extremely concerned.” Lastly, he says police members are hailing the downfall of former Deputy National Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya and former Crime Intelligence deputy chief Feroz Khan. “...Really dedicated ground level members are saying, but this is good riddance. They've been wishing for resolve for so long.”.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:00) Another shocking exposé of the utterly horrific working conditions of South Africa's policemen, thanks to Ian Cameron, the chair of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police. Welcome, Ian.Ian Cameron (00:15) Thank you, Chris.Chris Steyn (00:17) Ian, please share the details of your latest oversight visit with our viewers.Ian Cameron (00:22) Sure, Chris. In June of this year, June 2026, we did an unannounced visit with the Police Portfolio Committee to the Olievenhoutbosch police station just outside of Centurion in Gauteng. It was a late Friday evening. As I said, it was unannounced; we were actually not even planning on going there. And what we found was really horrific.When we got there, you would remember it was just before the March and March so-called shutdown that everyone was waiting for. And outside of the station, there were hundreds of potential victims at that stage, as they called themselves, people that had been displaced due to threats of violence, et cetera.But we found this really small station, basically, I would say, a small two-bedroom home that is fenced in with quite a dilapidated, broken fence. I'll share the pictures that you guys can use that I took yesterday. A station that really shouldn't be considered a full-fledged police station. We then laid certain complaints, and yesterday was the return day.I went there alone yesterday to go and check out what exactly has improved or not. And what we found was really bad. We found 30 detectives, over 30 detectives, that are sharing an office container where they only have three chairs and one laptop between all of those detectives, and no official detective telephones. They only have one scanner for the station, and that specific office doesn't have a scanner available. And as you know, they're meant to constantly scan and import dockets to the IT system. There's also no proper internet. So most members actually use their personal phones (02:43) to communicate when the internet is needed, and in many cases even use their personal phones to do official communication.And next to it, we found another office, which is literally the cab of a massive truck, a huge trailer, for which the station does the vehicle licensing every year, that is used as an office. This is where your support function sits. Their dedicated firearms office capacity, when they do work, and this is for licence applications, et cetera, literally puts a table under a tree outside. They've got no boardroom, no proper storage facilities, and they don't have a cell, any cells for that matter. So if they have to hold someone there until they can take them to where they would be detained before appearing in court, et cetera, they have to be cuffed inside the community service centre. You can just imagine the risk that this would hold, not only for members of the police, but also potentially for members of the public, clients of the police that need to go and connect with the police for some other reason.Ian Cameron (04:17) So Chris, at the Olievenhoutbosch police station, we also found that with regard to, for example, being able to privately interview someone that has been a victim of gender-based violence, there is no adequate private interviewing space. They also, in terms of that capacity, don't have proper computer access, and they also rely on personal phones that they need to use for work-related matters.And here's the thing. One might think that this is one in many stations, and I know people understand that the police, generally speaking, are not in great shape. But many times you get to a station and you can see challenges, but you don't get the impression of total collapse. Now, the interesting thing at Olievenhoutbosch was that the attitude of the members is mainly really, really positive. In fact, it's something unique that we picked up the previous time too. Remember, they didn't know we were coming. And despite that, when I get there, I walk around in the station and I look at what's being done and how they're addressing members of the public, and generally speaking, it seems really positive. So I have to give them credit for that.And then we moved on to the Pretoria West police station, and boy oh boy, what we found there was also really not good. Close to 40 detectives that have to share between 10 and 15 laptops, who also don't have the relevant space. The station is divided amongst several different areas, so they need to go to different offices, et cetera. Major challenges with regard to vehicles: quite close to 50% of the vehicle fleet is not available due to challenges with the garage of the South African Police Service. And even the fleet manager report, the report that indicates how many vehicles are operational or not, was not only far behind.Ian Cameron (06:37) After scrutinising the actual list, I found that many of the vehicles that had been reported active to me were actually not active.And then, once again, the GBV-related findings. The victim-friendly room, again, had no sufficient privacy. There's no waiting area for victims, a safe, comfortable waiting area. There's no usable or dedicated space for children. And because of the high volume of domestic violence-related complaints and assaults, one would think it's one of the basic things to tackle.And then lastly, Chris, and I guess then I can answer the questions on it, we went to Akasia and the Lyttelton police station. At Akasia, we found a severely dilapidated police station, to the point where many of the bathrooms are totally out of order. In fact, the doors are falling off. Members have had to physically fix windows themselves. And the victim-friendly facility is a zinc shack, basically, outside. It actually looks quite nice from the outside, but it has no electricity. And you can imagine, in the north of Pretoria, in a place like Akasia, how warm or how hot it gets in there. So what's meant to be a victim-friendly facility is not friendly at all. And there's no privacy for victims and social workers alike to be able to connect with each other and share potentially some of the worst moments that some of these victims may have experienced. These are just some of the major things that stood out yesterday.Chris Steyn (08:26) So Ian, what is causing this neglect of police stations?Ian Cameron (08:31) Well, I think in Olievenhoutbosch's case, let me start with them. You know, there are severe shortcomings when it comes to planning and development of these stations. Over the past 25 years, population growth has been significant in all of these areas. A place like Olievenhoutbosch has really exploded in terms of population growth, and it's as though the development of policing didn't keep up with that.Now, the challenge that we have is, over the years, the communication between the South African Police Service and the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure got further and further behind. The divide got bigger and bigger. Disputes in terms of money being paid or not paid also grew. And eventually, the Department of Public Works also didn't service some of those facilities.Now, I have personally engaged with the Minister of Public Works, Dean Macpherson, and so too with the Acting Minister of Police [Firoz Cachalia] on some of these structures. Whether we speak or write, there's no doubt that on a ministerial level, there is an interest in fixing it. But somewhere in between top leadership and what happens on the ground, something goes very, very wrong.The long and the short of it is, at a station like Olievenhoutbosch, even if you fix all the problems at the station at the moment, it is not sufficient to serve a community of that size. So they would need a new property, a new building, a proper station that's properly capacitated for them to do the work they need to do.And I think what really frustrates me is that this isn't me coming to tell them, "Hey, I've identified a problem here." The members of the South African Police Service plead for help because they want to work. And yes, you've got your rotten apples here and there; I'm aware of that. But the attitude that I see of the members that come forward over time, whether weeks or months, is that they want to work, and they hang in there despite the conditions that they work in.Ian Cameron (10:54) I walked into the kitchen there yesterday, and apart from it being minuscule, it has become a storage room as well. So there's literally a motorbike of some kind being stored inside the kitchen. And I don't blame the police, because I have to ask: where else are they meant to store that motorbike? I believe it's something that was booked in as evidence, but they don't have an evidence store that is sufficient, and if they leave it outside, it either gets vandalised or stolen. So it's a bit of a catch-22.In terms of, for example, the Akasia police station, there's a constant dispute about who needs to maintain the station. They haven't been maintaining the station for many years. They claim that it's the City of Tshwane that owns the property, and on the other side, people say the police or Public Works need to get involved. So there is just zero maintenance there.At Pretoria West, they've got an elderly lady that has to clean three facilities on her own, and it's just a short while before her retirement.And so I can go on. I don't want us to have to go for counselling afterwards. The point is just that these are the types of issues that we are trying to address.Now, I've already submitted the reports this morning to both the minister and the national commissioner, and we will be following it up as we always do. The long and the short of it is that we have to see some kind of a drastic turnaround when it comes to the upkeep of the stations. I want police members to feel proud of being at their station. They need to feel that they want to be there. No matter the work pressure that they have, it should be a space that is conducive for them, not one where they're unable to do their work properly.If I may add, at the Lyttelton police station, they haven't had cells for over a decade because of a sinkhole that they had there. So at Lyttelton, at Akasia and at Olievenhoutbosch, they don't have proper detention facilities. So they literally need to drive anyone, any suspect, to other stations and detain them there.Ian Cameron (13:12) So you can imagine it basically means that yet another police vehicle is out of the area until the detainee has been dropped, detained, paperwork done, and then they can come back to the space where they're needed for policing.Chris Steyn (13:26) Well, I hope that National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola, now that he has been reinstated, will make the working conditions of policemen a priority.Ian Cameron (13:39) Yeah. My experience with General Masemola: previously, I tried to address the conditions of a base in Cape Town where the Anti-Gang Unit, Public Order Policing and TRT [Tactical Response Team] are based, amongst others. And unfortunately, at that stage, the special-leave Minister, Mchunu [Senzo Mchunu], was still in his position. And unfortunately, from the minister's side, there was no response. The national commissioner said he would do his best to intervene. It unfortunately hasn't happened yet. So I'm really hoping that this time around we'll see some kind of positive resolve.Chris Steyn (14:19) And then there were quite a few shocks in the Police Committee's budget review as well.Ian Cameron (14:25) So the police did their budget review for us, and I think the main thing that stood out is that they spent 100% of their budget but hardly reached 50% of their targets [49 of 94 annual targets, per the committee]. What also stood out was the DNA backlog. It's a catastrophe at the moment. It's something that hasn't improved whatsoever. And the large majority of our recommendations, to connect with universities and the private sector, have not been implemented, or at least have not reached any kind of positive conclusion.What also stood out was the 9.3 or 9.5% murder detection rate. The target was 60%. Now, it doesn't mean that it fell from 60 to 9%. We told them not to have a target of 11% [SAPS 2025/26 plan: 11.33%] when they were setting the targets for this year. They said to us that they need to be realistic. My recommendation was to go for 15 or even 20%, and let's work towards that together, see how we can reach that. SAPS then overreached completely, and they made their target 60%, and they only reached just over 9%. It basically means that only one out of 10 murders are actually detected properly. Remember, it doesn't necessarily mean it is solved or that there's success or prosecution. This is just a complete detection process. So I am extremely concerned.Once again, as we work through this process, we will see what we can do to reinforce and strengthen them. I must, in their defence, say it's the first time in three years of contact with this process that I experienced such an openness from the South African Police Service to address this. Previously, it very often felt like they were trying to hide away from the problem. This time, they openly, and almost in a disciplined way, said: "We have a problem, we are going to address it, this is what we've done already," et cetera. So we'll have to wait and see.Chris Steyn (16:41) And meanwhile, former Deputy National Commissioner General Shadrack Sibiya has been refused bail. How do members on the ground respond to all the drama surrounding him? All the embarrassment.Ian Cameron (16:55) To be honest with you, Chris, with the large majority of members that I've spoken with regarding Sibiya, they actually laugh. It's become a bit of a laughing matter. It's the same with [Feroz] Khan. Now, both Mr Khan and Mr Sibiya have all this controversy around them. But what is encouraging to me is that a lot of the, you know, really dedicated ground-level members are saying, "But this is good riddance." They're all saying that. They've been saying it for years. They've been wishing for resolve for so long, and they're now suddenly seeing this major increase.You've also seen the other general that was arrested and charged this week for being in possession of unlicensed ammunition [Mulangi Mphego, per reports; verify]. And that specific individual has also appeared in court, also from a Crime Intelligence background. In fact, he was the head of Crime Intelligence under Thabo Mbeki, when Mbeki was still the president.So, yeah, we will have to see. I think a lot of the members on ground level feel encouraged, and I hope that with General Masemola's return, we may see even more of not only the criminal investigation side of it, but actual disciplinary consequences.Chris Steyn (18:18) Thank you. That was Ian Cameron, Chair of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Ian.Ian Cameron (18:27) Thank you very much, Chris. Appreciate it.