SAPS under fire over DNA Bill
MPS QUESTION COSTS OF IT SYSTEM
SA POLICE Service top brass were sent packing by MPs yesterday after the SAPS was unable to fully outline the billions of rand it would cost taxpayers when the imminent DNA Bill was enacted.
Briefing the portfolio committee on police, SAPS divisional commander for technology management services Lieutenant-General Bonginkosi Ngubane was unable to, for the second time in two months, explain why the department could not give the total cost for the IT system needed to support the Criminal Law (Forensics Procedures) Amendment Bill.
After facing harsh criticism from MPs, the police and State Infor- mation Technology Agency (SITA) withdrew behind closed doors.
But they returned to the table empty handed.
“I have been informed that making sense of the figures after an hour and a half is not really possible ... It’s not really surprising,” chairwoman Annelize van Wyk said.
She gave the departments until next Wednesday to submit the total cost to the committee in writing.
The bill seeks to improve the police’s powers to collect and store DNA samples from convicted felons, crime scene evidence and missing persons, among others.
While the overall expenditure was not available, Ngubane was able to outline some of the costs involved. These included: R44.5-million for the software; R40-million to configure the lab ware; and
R6-million to train 3 000 senior officers by the end of this financial year with an estimated additional R25-million for the next nine years.
Ngubane said it would take four years until the system and the database were up and running.
The choice of the software to sustain the envisaged system was also questioned.
SITA and the SAPS had yet to concretely decide whether the FBI Combined DNA Index System or the “home-grown ” SOLVE system would be used.