Hawks budget increases
Funding for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, better known as the Hawks, has been increased to R1.4 billion in the 2016/17 financial year and will be used on, among others, the establishment of specialised drug and firearms units, Police Minister Nathi Nhleko said on Thursday.
Nhleko was delivering his budget vote speech in Parliament.
“A decision was taken to reestablish the Narcotics Bureau and the Firearm Investigation Combating units because of the need and the outcry of our citizens,” he said, but failed to give any more detail.
The units would be established under the Hawks, as announced by President Jacob Zuma during his state-of-the-nation address in February.
Nhleko told MPs this would be the last year the Hawks would be funded from his department’s budget.
“In the outer years of this period, the Hawks will be funded directly from Treasury, and this should satisfy compliance with the ruling of the Constitutional Court in entrenching the independence of the unit.”
In 2014, the Constitutional Court found the legislation governing the Hawks unconstitutional, saying the specialised unit was not sufficiently independent from the police and therefore not insulated from possible interference by the executive.