The South African Police Service (Saps) has detailed how it will spend the R127 billion allocated for the 2026-27 financial year, with salaries taking the biggest share of the pie.
On Wednesday, acting national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane briefed the portfolio committee on police.
The total allocation for the 2026-27 financial year is 127 billion, with R131.6 billion allocated for the 2027-28 financial year and R135.7 billion the following year.
Saps budget: employee compensation
According to Dimpane, the compensation of employees constitutes at least 80% of the total Saps budget, which is R102 billion. This includes salaries, pensions, service bonuses, personnel losses and investment in students.
“We have also catered for cost-of-living salary adjustments, with the agreement at 4% increase. R2.9 billion is allocated in this regard. We have also provided for pay progression at 1.5%, with R784 million set aside,” Dimpane said.
“We do have a number of members that we also provide for at R4 billion; these are the service allowances that we pay to our members, night shift allowance and detective allowance. This includes the overtime we will pay our members to ensure we deliver secure elections later this year. R1.5 billion has been set aside.
“For housing allowance for our members, over R4 billion has been set aside as well. We cater for medical schemes at R12.4 billion.”
The Saps has set aside a discretionary amount of R924 million, an increase from last year’s R860 million.
“It allows us to have an HR strategy that will then talk to the capacitation of our specialised units, promotions of members and filling of critical vacancies,” said Dimpane.
“We have set aside over R900 million to ensure that we deliver and recapacitate those environments as expected. So, over R102.2 billion has been set aside for employee compensation.
“Due to the number of employees, personnel is the primary cost driver, which then also drives direct operational expenditure. Therefore, employee compensation constitutes more than 80% of the vote. It is therefore determined annually from zero, taking into account existing and new personnel, after which they are portioned between programmes.”
Early retirement
The Saps is losing employees due to the early retirement of officers and the voluntary exit programme.
According to Dimpane, an additional R700 million has been allocated over the 2026 medium-term expenditure framework for this programme.
Over 900 employees have participated in the voluntary exit programme.
As the country heads to the polls for the local government elections later this year, more police resources will be deployed to ensure safe elections. R400 million has been allocated for the elections.
Operational programmes
According to Dimpane, R75 million from Saps operational budget was shifted towards the Hawks for the 2026-27 financial year, for the DPCI to be able to deal with the partnership with the Joint Initiative on Crime and Corruption.
Operational expenditures are predominantly for goods and services, and for machinery and equipment used to perform services, which together comprise less than 20% of the total budget in the 2026-27 financial year.
Goods and services, and capital investment categories include the capacitation of the Hawks, crime intelligence, detective services, functionalities pertaining to cybercrime and specialised units.
“We are also going to be focusing on enhancing the financial forensic and accounting capabilities of the DPCI to address recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force. This includes the procurement of drones, CCTV and all IT-related priorities,” said Dimpane.
“We are also aware that we have to put money aside to ensure that all the recommendations that will come from the ad hoc committee, as well as the Madlanga Commission, are implemented and where there are specific reforms that need to be in place, those reforms must be funded in this regard. So this is also our focus area.”
Saps will also focus on supporting effective border security and interventions, safety of communities through addressing priority crimes such as murders, organised crime, the issues of control of firearms and gender-based violence.
“Investing in capital assets consisting of machinery and equipment, essentially transport assets, infrastructure, as well as ensuring that where we need to be reached by the communities, mobile police stations are also in place.”
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