07 October 2009

Today's briefing of the Portfolio Committee on Police by the Department's forensics team on the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedure) Amendment Bill was a disturbing eye-opener.

"South Africans are fed a steady TV diet of popular crime scene investigation programmes replete with technologically state-of-the-art, even futuristic, forensic laboratories. We would be forgiven for thinking that if our police found a blood stain at a crime scene, they could track down the criminal within hours," said Velaphi Ndlovu, IFP Spokesperson on Police.

But while the UK has more than a 50% chance of getting a hit from their databases on DNA evidence, South Africa has only 0,02% chance of identifying ‘who did it' based on the blood, hair or semen they leave behind.

"The IFP therefore welcomes changes to the legislation to bring us into the 21st century. But we encourage the Police and Justice Committees to interrogate the details of the Amendment Bill carefully," said Ndlovu.

"It is also worrying that the obstacles to setting up a DNA database are not only legislative," he added. "We need to focus on forensic capacity as well."

Contact:
Velaphi Ndlovu MP,             083 625 0803 or
Liezl van der Merwe,            083 611 7470.