SAPS urged to pay informers rewards promised

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Pretoria - The Public Protector has urged the South African Police Services (SAPS) not to renege on paying informers rewards owed to them, saying this brought the image of the police under disrepute.

Public Protector, Advocate Lawrence Mushwana said on Wednesday that members of the public would be reluctant to assist police in future with intelligence, if they were promised rewards and were not paid, in particular when such assistance involved security risks to individuals and their families.

He was responding to the findings of an investigation into a complaint relating to a failure by the SAPS to pay a reward to an informer.

The informer had alleged that the SAPS failed to pay him a R75 000 reward which was promised to him for successfully assisting the SAPS and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in arresting and securing convictions on certain criminal matters.

Advocate Mushwana said their investigation had found that the SAPS had failed to pay the reward to the complainant and that the report had already been issued and released for urgent implementation of his office's recommendations.

"In future SAPS should desist from reneging from its undertaking as this conduct brings its image into disrepute. People would be reluctant to assist police in future in particular when such assistance involved security risks to individuals and their families.

"The prevalence of violent crimes in this country demands that we all work in partnership against crime if we want to succeed in reducing violent crime," said Advocate Mushwana.