Ian Cameron: The inside story of the fight for a better police force…

In this wide-ranging interview with BizNews, Ian Cameron, the Chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Police, takes viewers behind the scenes in the fight for a better police force. He covers the latest crime statistics; upcoming skills audits; the “carnage and chaos” and “dirty political fight” at Crime Intelligence; the “pushback” Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has been getting internally after “questioning certain things”; the significant challenge of working with certain senior managers in SAPS; the dangers of taking actions that directly impact on “especially the financial well-being of certain criminal figures”; and the horrific working conditions at the Anti-Gang Unit where he was shocked - on an unannounced oversight visit - to run into the very captain in whose vehicle a known Cape Flats hitman posed with a big smile a few years ago. Cameron also shares the successful outcomes of a number of the committee’s ground-level visits and departmental hearings. “I hope that these kinds of cases will set a bit of an example to potential wrongdoers in the South African Police Service….Something…that’s encouraging to me is the fact that from all the different parties or entities sides there are questions. So it makes it very difficult for anyone to hide because everyone has different contact points and different persons that they speak to. So I think it's becoming a very uncomfortable environment to be in.”