R450m political killings unit under scrutiny for lack of measurable impact

South Africa’s highly funded Political Killings Task Team, formed to tackle politically motivated murders is under fire after senior SAPS officials admitted that despite spending over R450 million, there is no formal framework to measure whether the unit is effectively fulfilling its mandate.

The claim came during testimony before Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee, where SAPS Chief Financial Officer Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane acknowledged that until now, no impact assessment model has been used to evaluate the task team’s work.

Dimpane told the committee that the police are working with research partners to develop a proper impact-assessment framework, with a goal to complete it by the end of the financial year. She said past operations, including those during the Covid-19 lockdown, are being reviewed but have not yet been fully documented in publicly available reports.

Originally established to address spikes in political killings in KwaZulu-Natal, the task team has since carried out operations nationwide. Dimpane raised concerns about the budgeting process, explaining that funding for the unit is renewed quarterly, which complicates long-term planning and the tracking of outcomes.

Critics argue that the absence of structured evaluation poses serious accountability risks. The Ad Hoc Committee set up following allegations by former KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi that politically connected figures obstructed investigations has warned that without measurable impact, public trust in the unit’s effectiveness may erode.

Mkhwanazi previously called attention to the controversial disbandment of the task team, suggesting political interference, while Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya, who once led the unit, defended its winding down, claiming its core functions would be integrated into regular criminal investigations.