Listen here.In this wide-ranging interview with Chris Steyn, Ian Cameron, the Chairperson of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, details the shocking DNA testing backlog. “...this is literally how a child rapist, a child murderer, any murderer or rapist for that matter walks free. This is literally the way that the State, the inability of the State to process this evidence, becomes the reason for a rapist to continue raping.” Cameron discusses the widening scandal surrounding Crime Intelligence (CI) boss General Feroz Khan, the case of suspended Lieutenant General Molefe Fani, and others. “What the Madlanga Commission is showing us is that Khan was actually one of the key pieces of the puzzle for Fani to ensure that this procurement process for PPE during the COVID-19 period was smoothly operated with the South African Police Service……a lot of key players in SAPS knew that Fani had been involved in this irregular PPE procurement during his time as a Chief Procurement officer at National Treasury. And he was still appointed in SAPS as the Head of Supply Chain Management. That tells you that it was strategically done. That would be a key way of ensuring that a 360 million Rand Medicare 24 contract can come in. It's a key way of structuring your entire process before the contract could come in, in order for it not to be red flagged… lot of the things that are happening, make no mistake, it was done deliberately - and it was done deliberately to hollow out and to control the system in order to ensure that further criminality would be able to flourish.”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.078)It is crisis upon crisis in the South African Police Force. With me is Ian Cameron, the Chairperson of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police. Welcome Ian.ian (00:13.462)Thank you, Chris.Chris Steyn (00:15.298)May we start with the DNA backlog shock? Those figures, please.ian (00:22.53)Yeah, Chris, so we've been thinking and probably expecting some kind of a shocking bit of news with regards to the DNA backlog. And I need to explain this first. There are two main sets of data that are collected for the use of referencing, you know, to link someone to a crime scene, to link a suspect to a victim, whatever the case may be. So you'll remember in about 2022, 2023, I don't know, I can't remember the exact date, a new piece of legislation that came into play called the DNA Amendment Bill. And it basically said that any person suspected, arrested, obviously convicted too, for a Schedule 8 offense, so offenses like murder, rape, assault, GBH, et cetera, must be sampled for DNA. Okay, so obviously this would put a massive amount of pressure on the forensic processing system. And then on the other side you've got the crime scene DNA samples where actual forensic specialists go to a crime scene. They would, for example, let's say it's a hijacked vehicle, they would take samples from that specific vehicle to see if they can gather DNA from that vehicle. Maybe it's from a strand of hair, whatever it may be, the point is it comes from the crime scene. So now you've got these two sets of samples that need to be processed. And we started asking questions again, because you'd remember also a few years back, we had the case where we had a backlog of over 200,000 pieces of evidence that were allegedly not processed. And we then exposed it. You'd remember that at that stage, it was still former Minister Bheki Cele. And in the past two weeks, insiders from the Forensic Science labs of the South African Police Service approached us anonymously, obviously. And they came to tell us that we've got three massive problems. The first one is that…ian (02:46.402)…crime scene samples, DNA samples, the backlog is between 30 and 50,000. So that's crisis number one. Crisis number two is that reference index samples, those are the Schedule 8 ones that I explained to you. These are the ones for serious offenses or suspects of serious offenses. They are behind with between 200 and 250,000 samples that are waiting for processing.And then the third part is that the actual analysts that need to work with these samples haven't actually had their own mandatory medical surveillance done. So they have to go through a medical surveillance process every two years. And the majority of them haven't gone through that. So they are now medically exposed. And then yes, there's actually a fourth one as well. And the fourth one is that some of the labs, according to the analysts on the inside, are only sampling or processing one crime scene sample per case. Now usually for a case, we'd see that between three and four pieces of evidence are actually analysed. But now only one is because this backlog keeps growing and they need to process these cases, but there is physically no way to do it on their own.Chris Steyn (04:13.089)But what are the implications for justice for victims?ian (04:17.846)Well, this is literally how a child rapist, a child murderer, any murderer or rapist for that matter walks free. This is literally the way that the State, the inability of the State to process this evidence, becomes the reason for a rapist to continue raping. And this is meant to be in a time where the President announced the so-called State of Disaster, National Disaster of Gender-Based Violence and Femicide. That is just pure lip service. It's never been seen as any kind of national disaster and it's never received the attention that it's meant to.We have been asking for over two years, please start working with universities. If you look at a university like UCT, they've got phenomenal resources and many of the others do that could actually assist with DNA processing. But I'll come back to that now. Chris, I think something that I must add is we then started asking from the DA's point of view, we asked specific parliamentary questions to the Minister of Police to ask what is the actual data? And they replied with the following.ian (05:41.142)298,000 DNA exhibit entries are currently on hand. And when we looked at those, let's round it to 300,000, 228,000 of those, that means over 75% of those entries have already exceeded the prescribed processing timelines. So, that means only 33,000 of those are actually crime index samples. Those are the ones that I explained first that come from the actual crime scene. And they are critical for prosecution. The long and the short of it is with 76%, 75% having gone past the prescribed processing timelines.It already shows you what impact this would have because we're now seeing that cases in court are being struck from the roll because DNA reports haven't been finalised yet. So eventually a magistrate or a judge would just say, well, we've got to let this be… we can't keep detaining someone without this critical piece of evidence.Let me colour in a little bit more. And unfortunately it doesn't look any better. The carryover data shows that there were thousands, so almost 50,000 cases that were carried over from the 2025-26 financial year with 63,000 new samples received. But it gets even worse. I'm sorry to elaborate, I know the numbers can be quite confusing. The long and the short of it is that the...prescribed turnaround time for all categories is 90 days. At the moment, there are certain cases that have been waiting for over two years. So in other words, if I can refer back to, I don't know if you remember the case, I think you and I spoke of it back in the day of a little girl… in the Eastern Cape..,three or four years old. She was murdered. She was raped, murderedian (08:01.344)…mutilated and dumped in a pit toilet in Rocklands in the Eastern Cape. And her attacker or murderer, rapist, continued doing so. And due to the DNA backlog, he was only matched to the case and actually apprehended again two years later, within which he continued to rape and do what he did. So the implication of it is just simply that it literally paves the way for murderers and rapists to continue doing what they do.Chris Steyn (08:37.675)And what can you do to force action here?ian (08:42.476)So I think the first critical thing is that we really, from the DA's point of view, have been pushing very, very hard to see university collaboration. And,,,I sometimes get the impression that certain individuals in the South African Police Service have this kind of a, they've got this idea that it's a way to show them up. And it's not that at all. I think universities should be the ultimate force multiplier. It's a way for them to reestablish, I almost want to call it a feeding scheme, to feed the police with new forensic experts, get people to build up experience, to learn, and to build this institutional depth that the South African Police Service so desperately needs. So that's the first point. The second point is that the backlog literally cannot, it can physically not be fixed without the help of institutions like universities. So if they are cautious about the private sector, that's a debate they need to have. I must say, if I were them, I'd use the private sector, I'd use more State institutions, I would decentralise certain forensic capacity, I'll come to that now, and I would use universities. And I would use SAPS as the central facilitating mechanism to ensure that these types of samples should be done within 30 days, nevermind 90 days. There's no reason for us to be struggling the way that we are. I think by using universities, it would also be a massive force multiplier for them to increase the tempo with which they could do this.ian (11:29.846)Yeah, so the long and the short of it is if we don't use universities, I don't see how we can fix it with the police alone. I think in a place like the city of Cape Town, we've got a really good opportunity to expand policing powers. So even with something like the DNA backlog, I think there's an opportunity to pull in the city and say, but wait a minute, let's say for gang related offenses, we start assisting somehow, even if it's a partnership. I know the city doesn't currently do that, but if they've got some kind of a partnership with the province and with, for example, one of the universities, why not start developing a decentralised model and expand policing powers there?You know, there are so many opportunities for SAPS to collaborate and to work with stakeholders. And there's only one reason in most of the cases that this doesn't work. Centralised power in the South African Police Service increases control in terms of being able to be corrupt. And I can just imagine the frowns that I would get from certain people in SAPS. But if we look at the procurement process in the South African Police Service, it was centralised to the point where you had the current suspended divisional commissioner of supply chain and a whole score of other people that were in total control of what contracts came in or out. You had previous ministers directly involved with hand picking and being involved in those processes or influencing those processes. And the Madlanga Commission speaks for itself in that regard. I think the question again, and I always ask this is, is it about politics or the people? If it were about the people, it should be decentralised and we need to have a broader group of institutions and people to take on the problem.Chris Steyn (13:36.554)On to another crisis. The widening scandal surrounding Crime Intelligence boss General Feroz Khan. There was his arrest, then his battle to keep his devices out of the hands of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, a battle he lost. Then the apparent assassination attempt just before he was due to be questioned about what had been found on those devices. Even testimony emerging about links of his criminal associates to high profile crimes, his lucrative property portfolio. I can go on, Ian.ian (14:14.54)Yeah, I mean, we, yeah, let me start with the alleged assassination attempt. I think that case specifically needs to be very, very carefully looked at. I'm not insinuating anything with it. I just think that, you know, it's too coincidental. And I could be wrong, so that's why I'm saying I don't want to just insinuate, but it just seems odd. It was also interesting if I saw through the media that in some of the police reports, it indicated that there was no damage to the vehicle, which is also just an interesting thing to consider.With regards to General Khan, you'd remember you and I spoke about him. I think it was in the beginning of 2025, end of 2024, I mentioned him at the end of, or at the beginning of a Police Portfolio Committee session. I didn't actually mention his name and I just spoke about alleged misconduct. I spoke about the so-called cocaine theft, Et cetera. And within minutes or hours after the Portfolio Committee meeting, I received a letter to cease and desist. So I received a letter from Ian Small-Smith basically telling me to keep quiet and to not, you know; they assume that I'm speaking about their client and they therefore reserve their rights…ian (16:11.404)…to take action. So it was already back then that there was this discomfort regarding Khan. And I think a lot of that, a lot of the questions that many of us had at that stage have now started to actually come to fruition. People are not only speaking out, but they're colouring in the picture, showing us how wide and how deep his web of influence actually goes.You'd remember when Senzo Mchunu was still or before his extended leave, holiday suspension, I don't know what you call it. But Mchunu actually told me that when he was appointed as the Minister of Police before it was publicly announced, he was visiting the President. The President shared this news with him. And when he walked out, Khan was waiting outside and he congratulated him and Mchunu told me that Khan said to him, congratulations on your appointment as Minister of Police. So he certainly has a lot of influence. You can see now with the WhatsApp messages being exposed at the Madlanga Commission that there is a significant amount of other so-called operations that he was involved in that certainly are not above board. The type of information that he shared with members of the...that he received from people within the State and out are things that are in many cases highly sensitive. And then we get back to the lifestyle issue. And this is where I think Advocate Chaskalson has its spot on that if any senior member of SAPS cannot explain and do not disclose the necessary wealth or the so-called wealth that they have, then that should be forfeited to the State. I would go even further that the necessary criminal investigations need to be open. If legislation doesn't allow that already, it should be done now. So yeah, I think this is just the beginning. I'm really hoping that the commission will be further extended because I think there's a lot more…ian (18:36.086)….that can be done and that does not need to take very long either.Chris Steyn (18:40.825)And in the latest development, IDAC boss Andrea Johnson suddenly rushed to hospital before she could be questioned before the Commission about her relationship with General Khan.ian (18:52.17)Yeah, I mean, it's difficult for me to say in terms of a lot of the work related things that I've seen in a way back with regards to Advocate Johnson was very professional. Unfortunately, when she was questioned at the Ad Hoc Committee, there were quite a few things that we had our doubts about. I personally do not know enough about the ins and outs of IDAC.I know there are competent people in IDAC too. So, you know, I see there's an impression it's almost like the PKTT where people create the impression like the PKTT, some people speak of it as being totally rogue. And then they speak of IDAC, other people speak of IDAC as being this rogue entity. And I think that would be very unfair because I know for a fact that regardless of the institution, there are utterly, utterly competent and professional people working in those bodies. Yeah, so in terms of her being allegedly ill or having been admitted to a hospital, there's nothing I can do to prove or disprove whether she is or isn't. But that being said, it is becoming a bit of a frustrating trend that as soon as someone needs to testify, they either have to go to a for a psychiatric evaluation or they have to go to a hospital. I must say, and I don't say it in a defensive way, I think it is an extremely stressful time for everyone involved, regardless if you're sitting on the panel questioning or whether you're the one being questioned. I also think that a lot of the people that themselves know that they have done things that are not above board. I think to them, it's becoming a reality that they can actually face the music, which for many, years wasn't the case. And I think a lot of those skeletons are coming back and they're coming to realise that they could be facing trouble.Chris Steyn (21:13.097)Until the police and political capture inquiries, I think these people felt completely untouchable. And then the sheer desperation when things, when skeletons started tumbling out of the cupboard: we've seen suicide linked to the murder of a witness. We have seen staged assassination attempts, sudden illnesses. So there's real desperation amongst those who once felt themselves untouchable.ian (21:46.284)Yeah, I think it's becoming increasingly dangerous. You would have seen a piece by Common Sense by Frans Cronje and them just two or three weeks ago when they spoke about just the dangers of being a politician versus a police member in South Africa. And they basically indicated that you've got a bigger chance of being murdered as a politician than as a police member.So. And one needs to put it into context as well. There's a lot at play, especially on a local government level, when it comes to influencing tenders and those types of things. And we all know the corruption that unfortunately goes along with that sometimes. But yeah, I think we will likely see more of these unfortunate things happening. The State does not have the capacity to control it or to prevent it from happening on the level that they should be able to. They do not have the intelligence structures that they should to do so. And I'm afraid that, as we saw with the 30th of June, if they do not collaborate with the private sector and with all other local and provincial law enforcement authorities, and obviously those being above board, then there's no way of winning the fight. But, Chris, mean, if you think about it, if you think about General Kahn, for example, I mean, just the way that he came through the ranks is off. It makes no sense. Remember that Kahn went straight from being a captain to a full colonel. So he skipped the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He went straight from being a colonel to a Major General. So he skipped the rank of Brigadier as well. That's absolutely unheard of. It makes no sense whatsoever. And people trying to paint that as being a decorated officer, I'm sorry, to me personally, it's just my personal opinion. I just don't, I don't buy it. If we then look at General Moodley, I speak under correction, but I know that he was recently dismissed or he's contesting it at the moment.ian (24:04.236)But same thing also, at the same, more or less the same time as Khan skipped ranks to become a general. You remember General Tiyo in the Western Cape. What a massive fight it was to have him sacked from the police. In fact, after we fought the fight to get him to be taken through a disciplinary process and dismissed, he actually… came back to the South African Police Service. We were informed that he would be returning, and then he was fired again. So there are several examples of these types of individuals that we have taken on, and they just, in many cases, just continue to reign supreme. Currently, if you look at Lieutenant General Mbotho in the Hawks, in the DPCI. I mean, he was removed from SAPS after sending pornographic material to the Family Violence and Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit in the Western Cape. He was allegedly taken through a disciplinary process. He was then taken to the DPCI. I think he became the DPCI head in the Free State, Free State or Northwest, I speak under correction. And not too long after that, he was promoted to become a Lieutenant General. Now if that type of individual, and I'm not speaking about his alleged protection or interference in the arrest of Interpol Red List suspects in Cape Town and so on, very, very serious cases of wrongdoing. And the DPCI considered him beyond reproach. Senzo Mchunu approved of his promotion. …a lot of the things that are happening, make no mistake, it was done deliberately. And it was done deliberately to hollow out and to control the system in order to ensure that further criminality would be able to flourish.Chris Steyn (26:19.168)Ian, it's been just over a year since General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi called that press conference. We have seen consequences arising from the inquiries and the hearings. Who would you like to see behind bars when this is all over?ian (26:36.61)Sure. Chris, I think it could be detrimental to say exact names, but if I can start with the procurement environment of the South African Police, which I think is likely one of the most corrupt and corrupted environments. And trust me, there are incredible people that survive in that division. And how they do it, I do not know. And it's thanks to them that we get a lot of the information that we do about corruption. But I think someone and the courts need to decide, but someone that needs significant, significant investigation and it's already started is Lieutenant General alleged Dr. General Molefe Fani, the currently suspended Divisional Commissioner of Supply Chain management. Him and I have bumped heads over the years quite a bit. You know, he… at one stage last year, I questioned him after the Auditor General report came out and it showed that just in his division, irregular expenditure had increased by 140 % just in a year. And we think of Cat Matlala Medicare 24 contract. Those are all things that were empowered because of that specific divisional commissioner. Other role players too, but he played a key role. We think of his role when he was still working at National Treasury, how he assisted. And it's interesting that we spoke about General Khan now, but what the Madlanga Commission is showing us is that Khan was actually one of the key pieces of the puzzle for Fani to ensure that this procurement process for PPE during the COVID-19 period was smoothly operated with the South African Police Service. And if I remember correctly, a lot of the PPE that arrived had been bought locally. It never came from China. And most of the container was actually empty, or so I'm told. Now, the SIU, remember, had made presentations to Bheki Cele. He did nothing. He kept sending it for legal review.ian (28:57.654)They made several presentations to General Fannie Masemola, also did nothing. Senzo Mchunu actually said that he was frustrated by the fact that he wasn't getting further feedback about this and that he was concerned about it. Now, what his concern was and how exactly he facilitated response, I don't know. But the long and the short of it is that a lot of key players in SAPS knew that Fani had been involved in this irregular PPE procurement during his time as a Chief Procurement Officer at National Treasury. And he was still appointed in SAPS as the Head of Supply Chain management. That tells you that it was strategically done. That would be a key way of ensuring that a 360 million Rand Medicare 24 contract can come in. It's a key way of structuring your entire process before the contract could come in, in order for it not to be red flagged. And from what I'm aware, the only senior person that did flag it is the current Acting National Commissioner, Lieutenant General Dimpane, who said that something is wrong here. Remember, I wrote to the National Commissioner Fannie Masemola at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025. And I said, something's wrong with this contract. Why are you continuously paying? You're already starting paying. I can't remember the exact words. And they still continue to pay despite the fact that it had been flagged, not only by me, but more importantly, by internal audit of the South African Police Service. And then one last bit, which is a bit of a cherry on top, is to remember that SAPS have been structured, and I think deliberately so, that your Head of Supply Chain and your CFO both report to the National Commissioner. So instead of supply chain in terms of finances speaking into the CFO, they are running a parallel process here…ian (31:15.084)…with certain matters. So even if the CFO has internal audit on her side and she ensures that they do what they need to do and she flags it, supply chain management has a direct line to the National CommissionerChris Steyn (31:29.312)Hmm. Wow. Ian, lastly, what is at the top of the agenda of your committee going forward?ian (31:37.644)So at the beginning of August, we'll be starting the much anticipated Gang Violence inquiry, specifically focused on Cape Town. We know that gang violence is certainly on the increase. The places where we've actually seen a decrease is mainly because of intense work being done by the same old SAPS units that try to fight back in certain places with limited or no capacity, and specifically by increased intense efforts by the Metro Police and Law Enforcement and Violence Program, or LEAP as we know them, from not only the city of Cape Town, but also the Western Cape province. And that's where we've seen slight decreases in some cases. Unfortunately, we're now pushing very hard, and I say we from a political perspective, that the city should have its own detective capacity. I touched on that earlier. There's no way that SAPS in its current form in the Western Cape can fight this onslaught from gangs. And therefore, we need to get some kind of additional alternative to work with SAPS. Again, force multiplier to work with them in terms of investigation, forensic processing, and bring these perpetrators to book. Just yesterday, Geordin Hill-Lewis was in Mitchell's Plain at court for a drug dealer that has several previous convictions, serious violent crime convictions and drug dealing convictions. And he received bail of R3000…back out on the street. He received this bail a few weeks ago. He appeared again yesterday, bail was extended and he continues to do what he does. So the system is not working the way that it should. And I think it's in many cases and unfortunately due to officials as well, far too lenient with some of these criminals. Criminals very often get the benefit of the doubt, but victims don't seem to. And that's just simply not fair.ian (33:59.744)The first big thing is the Gang Inquiry. We've got the SAPS Amendment Bill coming up soon. That will take up a lot of time, especially in 2027. And remember, we keep seeing spurts of the Firearm Control Amendment Bill. But I think that's a dead duck. And we just need to continue pushing back against such a useless piece of legislation.Chris Steyn (34:29.334)Thank you. That was Ian Cameron, Democratic Alliance MP and Chairperson of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police. Speaking to BIzNews, I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Ian.ian (34:40.748)Thanks, Chris.