In response to a parliamentary question asked by the Democratic Alliance’s Ockert Terblanche, the minister of police Bheki Cele, shared statics which indicate that the Gauteng province had 1 836 687 unresolved dockets in the last five years. These cases include murder, rape, assault, and kidnappings.

Nationally, over 5.4 million case dockets were closed due to insufficient evidence or leads since the 2018/2019 financial year. This shocking figure highlights the continued struggles of the SAPS.

A further analysis of the stats indicates that, with an average of over 1 million unresolved cases per year, it means that almost 3,000 cases are closed daily by the SAPS without victims of crime ever receiving justice.

Speaking on Newzroom Afrika crime expert Willem Els says, ‘’for a number of months now, they have mentioned shortages of up to 8000 detectives, we estimate that it could be way more based on the crime statistics. If you are a detective and you are issued with one case every day, it means you will receive 30 new cases every month.’’

This brings into question whether SAPS is overburdened by crime cases and highlights the lack of skills within the force. ‘’We understand that some of these young detectives are carrying 200 case dockets per month that they have to investigate,’’ said Els.

SAPS was unavailable for comment at the time of publishing.