Security experts and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Police Affairs are expressing serious concern over the large number of unfilled positions within SAPS. Security expert Willem Els from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) attributed the existence of 8,000 vacancies in SAPS to inefficient management and a lack of consequence management measures.
Els commented on a National Treasury (NT) report, which indicated that SAPS spent 2.7 billion Rand—approximately 8.3% less than planned—on employee compensation and goods and services due to these vacancies. SAPS's budget for the 2026/27 financial year is 127 billion Rand, with employee compensation costs reaching about 102 billion Rand and goods and services at around 19 billion Rand.
On Tuesday, Deputy Director-General for Public Finance Ulrike Britton presented the expenditure report for the first quarter of 2026/2027 and the report for the fourth quarter of 2025/2026 for selected state entities to the Standing Committee on Appropriations. SAPS was among the top five departments whose spending fell below projections. Britton explained the slowdown in employee compensation spending by noting that the department has 8,023 vacant funded posts.
Britton stated that SAPS plans to hire 11,000 new police trainees, who will be financed primarily through the department's base employee compensation level and slightly increased by savings achieved from the first phase of the early retirement program. She specified that the trainee recruitment is scheduled from July 2026 to February 2027. Furthermore, she noted that delays in implementing salary increases and senior management promotions also contributed to reduced spending.
The reduction in goods and services was mainly linked to items such as IT services, caused by delays in invoicing by the State Information Technology Agency (SITA). Regarding fleet services, including government vehicles, Britton pointed out that slow spending was due to lower fuel costs because invoices were below projections.