Media reports today have revealed that on the last day of the 2015/16 financial year, the South African Police Service (SAPS) paid Forensic Data Analysts (FDA) over R52 million for a contract for 169 torches.

This amounts to an astonishingly exorbitant R300 000 per torch.

The invoice for the contract was paid for by the section in which former Acting National Police Commissioner General Khomotso Phahlane’s wife works. FDA is owned by a businessman that has been implicated in potentially corrupt transactions with Phahlane through the provision of luxury vehicles to him and his wife.

The DA will therefore write to the Secretary of Police, Mr Alvin Rapea, to request a specific investigation and analysis project of the SAPS expenditure over the last 5 financial years by the Civilian Secretariat, as per section 6(1)(b) of the Civilian Secretariat, in order to closely scrutinise potentially irrational or wasteful large contracts.

The reports also state that the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) is investigating other suspicious transactions between the SAPS and FDA.

SAPS annual reports always show that the department’s budget is fully spent yet police stations are always under-staffed and under-resourced. Stations are often told that there is not enough money when they ask for additional vehicles and personnel up the chain of command.

The DA have always suspected and can only conclude that the SAPS budget continues to be misspent due to skewed priorities and irrational procurement in supply chain management. This revelation sadly sheds light on that seemingly being the case.