Too soon to take Cele's word that crime intelligence unit has improved — experts

Police minister Bheki Cele will have to show a drastic decrease in organised crime before claiming an improvement in the performance of the crime intelligence (CI) unit and be more transparent about the division’s transformation.

This is the view of security experts after Cele this week highlighted the high-profile cases cracked by crime intelligence, including busting cash-in-transit and kidnapping syndicates.

The minister was confident such successes were due to the new management of the once troubled CI unit which he claimed had already yielded positive results.

He said under the leadership of the new CI head, Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo, the intelligence community is “gaining back its might and its bite”.

“It is clear the major shake-up and change of management in the crime intelligence unit is starting to yield very positive results. The crime intelligence division now has a tighter grip and is providing crucial information that is assisting everyday policing,” he said.

Crime experts welcomed the recent successes and new appointments but said the process of reforming the unit was “veiled in secrecy”.

While this is generally done globally due to concerns of national security and sensitive cases being investigated, transparency is required due to the previous dysfunctions and troubles the unit found itself in, said Stellenbosch University’s criminologist Dr Guy Lamb.

“We can’t just take the minister’s word for this. From the minister’s viewpoint, he has seen some personal changes and has probably seen some improvement in the management processes but there are still big questions about budget oversight in terms of spending and corruption-related spending ... When it comes to CI, there is a greater need for transparency because there is quite a big chunk of money allocated to CI but there is not much accountability for it,” he said.

Senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies Johan Burger said it was too early for Cele to make such claims despite having made “firm” appointments such as those of Khumalo and deputy national police commissioner Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya.

According to the Global Organised Crime Index of 2023, South Africa is scored seventh, receiving one of the worst scores when it comes to scale of criminality out of 193 countries.

However, after the decay in the unit under the leadership of former head Richard Mdluli, Burger said it would take years before the country saw a drastic decline in organised crime.

He believed Khumalo and Sibiya were “solid and worthwhile appointments” but that results would not be clearly visible any time soon.

“For the minister to claim now, from some of the successes the police had on organised crime that it shows crime intelligence is already fixed, I think it’s a little too early to make such claims. I agree that there does appear to be improvements but if they are able to address the deficiencies and rebuild the CI in terms of capacity and performance, this is a process which won’t yield immediate results but hopefully results will continue to improve,” Burger said.

He said one way of judging the improvement of the crime intelligence unit is seeing the country move down the Global Organised Crime Index list and eventually being among those in the bottom 100 countries.

“We need to move out of that bracket ... One would want to see an end to the criminal gangs responsible for hijackings and cash-in-transit heists, and so on. You can only tackle this problem effectively if you have good intelligence and detectives.”

Lamb said it was important for Cele to be more transparent about the changes.

“If he wants other elements of society to be supportive of that, there needs to be a lot more transparency from crime intelligence and presentations to the parliamentary portfolio committee and evidence presented to the public around this particular change,” said Lamb.

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