32 Ipid investigators handle over 12 000 cases in Gauteng alone

Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) investigators are drowning in case loads, as complaints about police officers pile up. Ipid acting national head of investigations Thuso Keefelakae appeared before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday and discussed the backlogs plaguing Ipid. “We are sitting at 11 947 cases and we have the active cases that were still under investigation as of the end of December 2025.

We were sitting with 2 456. And the trend, chairperson, is that come the end of the financial year, we would be having 14 000 of the cases that are still active,” Keefelakae said. “They still need investigation.

The investigation is not completed. And then the more we try to complete this backlog cases, this number of cases, then populate the post-decision monitoring cases. “The more we complete our investigation, take the matters to the stakeholders to discipline their members, metros and the NPA, we then balloon the number of those cases that we refer to as post-decision monitoring cases.

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“Because we have completed them, now they are going to and from court. They require subpoenas, you have to then transport this witness from point A to point B because he’s scared, he cannot go there by himself and all of that. So those are the challenges that we’re having.” In total, Ipid had 48 432 cases and 182 investigators countrywide.

“Now, on average, I’m saying here that one Ipid investigator will be sitting with 266 cases. If you look at Gauteng, on average, Gauteng is sitting at 390. That’s out of 32 investigators.

And this can also be attributable to the fact that the intake in Gauteng province is very high. “And I think it’s also compounded by the fact that we receive death cases, if it’s not daily, it will be just after a day you get a death case. Sometimes you get two in one day.

And sometimes in one incident, it’s four bodies.” The statistics on death cases are no better, said Keefelakae. In Gauteng only, one Ipid investigator could be handling 43 cases. However, Keefelakae said the high number of cases against police officers is also a reflection of the communities they are dealing with.

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