CIVOC Allowance Increase Rejected Over Non-compliance and Oversight Failures

GOOD Speech by Jonathan Cupido, GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor:

Speaker, this item asks us to increase allowances for the Civilian Oversight Committee(CIVOC), a body established under the SAPS Act and governed by the Handbook for Members of CIVOC, approved by this Council under Item C18/04/23. That Handbook is not a guideline. It is a binding Council decision. And yet, it has been violated.

The Handbook explicitly requires regular engagement between CIVOC and the Safety and Security Portfolio Committee to ensure oversight, accountability, and coordination. That has not happened. There have been no consistent meetings, no structured reporting, and no meaningful public participation, all of which go directly against the very framework this Council adopted.

Speaker, the situation is so serious that in our latest amendment to the System of Delegations, this Council had to step in and assign responsibility to the Chairperson of the Safety and Security Portfolio Committee to ensure that CIVOC simply complies with its own requirements. That tells you everything.

Oversight has not just weakened; it has had to be administratively rescued. And even more concerning, the Executive Mayor himself has already committed, on record in this Council, that these reporting failures would be corrected.

Yet here we are. No correction. No compliance. No accountability. Speaker, now, while all of this is unresolved, the City comes to Council asking for an increase in allowances during an active public participation process on the budget.

So not only are we being asked to fund a structure that is not functioning in line with its legal and policy mandate, but we are also being asked to do so before the people of Cape Town have even concluded their input on the budget itself.

That is procedurally flawed and undermines the integrity of the public participation process required under the Systems Act and MFMA.

Speaker, this is not about whether CIVOC members should be paid fairly.

This is about whether this Council will reward non-compliance with its own resolutions, ignore violations of its own Handbook, and overlook a failure that even the Mayor has acknowledged.

GOOD will not do that.

Fix CIVOC. Restore compliance with the Handbook. Honour the commitments made to this Council. Then come back. Until then, we reject this item. Thank you.

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