EDITORIAL | Another day, another damning report. Stop dilly-dallying, Cyril

Another day, another devastating report that reveals state incompetence. This is becoming an equally heartbreaking and infuriating reality for South Africans.

The latest iteration was the release of the “Report of the Expert Panel into the July 2021 Civil Unrest”, handed to President Cyril Ramaphosa and made public on Monday. Chaired by Prof Sandy Africa, it makes a slew of findings against the state, particularly laying bare the failings of the security cluster.

Police, the panel found, were simply unable to handle the unrest when it started. This despite having information, some of it posted on social media, that it could happen and even when and where it would unfold.

Then, as if this weren’t bad enough, the police failed to react to an evolving situation, instead relying on tactics used to deal with previous protests.

While the report allows police some leeway — by stating, for example, that “young and old, women with babies” being involved in the protests meant they were unsure of what level of force to use and were severely under-resourced — it in no way absolves the force of responsibility.

“The police failed to stop the rioting and looting in July 2021. The reasons for this failure are complex and sometimes not of their making,” the report states.

There is also some praise for the SA National Defence Force (SANDF), which came in and seemed to “stabilise” the situation almost instantly.

But it saves much of its criticism for crime intelligence.

It says there was a “failure of reliable intelligence”, even if there is some contestation about whether intelligence structures did adequately inform those in power that such violence was possible.

The possibility that the faceless people behind this attack on the state were aware of the weaknesses of the security services makes the task of rebuilding a credible and professional intelligence service even more urgent. The intelligence services failed to predict the nature, scale and modus operandi of the July violence.

—  Report

“The possibility that the faceless people behind this attack on the state were aware of the weaknesses of the security services makes the task of rebuilding a credible and professional intelligence service even more urgent. The intelligence services failed to predict the nature, scale and modus operandi of the July violence,” the report states.

Regarding why police failed so badly, the report puts some of the blame on intelligence, in particular the removal of key people from crucial positions (even though the report isn’t specific about which people and which specifics).

“The police failed to stop the rioting and looting in July 2021. The reasons for this failure are complex and sometimes not of their making. In some instances, they did not get any intelligence upon which to plan operations. It is not clear why this was so, but one of the reasons may be that at least six members of the senior leadership of CI [crime intelligence] were suspended in the period leading up to the outbreak of the violence.

“It would be difficult for an organisation that had been hollowed out in that manner to rise to the occasion in times of crisis,” the report reads.

Another vital organ of state “hollowed out”, this time leading to loss of life and livelihood, causing economic devastation and leaving SA’s reputation in tatters.

But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.

The first two editions of the state capture commission’s report have shown a deliberate, systematic hollowing out of various crucial government and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

Sunday Times Daily has used this space before to call on Ramaphosa to do more, to act more decisively and move more precisely against those responsible for obvious wrongdoing. Now, with another report on his desk, we make this call again.

There is no more room for dilly-dallying, for waiting and for consultation. The failure of crime intelligence and of police to deal with what Ramaphosa called a “failed insurrection” led to nearly 400 deaths and devastated the country’s economy.

Failure to act decisively now would be an unmitigated disaster.