Statement by Ian Cameron MP – Deputy Spokesperson on Police:
Minister Dean Macpherson deserves recognition for delivering the new SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory in Mayville, KwaZulu-Natal, with urgency. The SAPS also deserves credit for its cooperation in helping bring this important project to handover. After years of drift, it is right to acknowledge when officials move with purpose and produce a real outcome.
When the Portfolio Committee on Police visited the SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory in KwaZulu-Natal in March 2025, what we found was not a minor infrastructure issue. It was a prolonged institutional failure that had gone on for far too long.
Nine years ago, the old facility flooded, and half a million rand was being paid each month to rent a building that could not be fully utilised. There were six flooding incidents after. This is while our country sat with a DNA backlog of around 140 000 cases.
That is not just an administrative problem. It is a justice problem.
When forensic systems fail, rape survivors wait longer, murder investigations stall, violent offenders remain free for longer, and cases are delayed or weakened before they ever reach finality in court. The cost of this kind of dysfunction is measured not only in wasted public money but in denied justice.
Without Parliamentary oversight, the project would not have been expedited. The handover of the new SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory is a concrete result of that oversight. It is an important and welcome development that directly addresses a longstanding infrastructure failure that had severely undermined forensic operations in the province.
Having been handed over, the facility must now improve the analysis of forensic material, including buccal samples, help reduce backlogs, and strengthen evidence-based prosecutions, especially in serious violent crimes and GBV cases.
A building on its own does not solve crimes. A modern facility without enough analysts, technicians, consumables, maintenance support, and disciplined supply chain management will simply become another underperforming asset. That is the next accountability test. The handover must now be followed by sustained resourcing, proper staffing, functioning equipment, reliable consumables, and continued oversight.
The Committee will continue to monitor whether this facility actually delivers what the public has been promised. The real test is not the handover ceremony. The real test is whether forensic turnaround times improve, whether backlogs decrease, and whether more victims finally see justice done.
That is the standard, which we will keep enforcing.
A special word must also go to the forensic experts who waited so long for proper conditions. Many of them endured repeated setbacks, uncertainty, and frustration, yet remained committed to their work and to the hope that this function would eventually receive the attention it deserves. Their resilience matters because forensic work is one of the clearest links between evidence, prosecution, and justice.
Shadow Gal
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