Nearly 49,000 unlawful‑arrest and detention claims have left the South African Police Service exposed to R56.7bn in contingent liabilities — a figure that underscores systemic rights breaches and poses a huge fiscal risk.
In a written reply to EFF MP Lorato Tito, acting police minister Firoz Cachalia said that at end-September 2025, the police could face claims of up to R56.7bn.
The police paid R541.7m in 2022/23, R491.3m in 2023/24, R620.3m in 2024/25 and R301.6m in the first six months of 2025/26 in provincial settlements.
Defence and national security analyst Ricardo Teixeira said contingent liability on unlawful arrests amounts to 42% of the SAPS budget of R133bn for 2025/26, and “suggests a severe systemic issue with police brutality and accountability”.
Teixeira added that between the findings of the Madlanga commission into allegations of corruption in the police force and judiciary and the scale of current claims, the SAPS is “in serious trouble” and that “nothing but a complete overhaul will restore public trust and confidence”.
DA MP Ian Cameron, who chairs the portfolio on police, cited warnings from the auditor-general that such liabilities “pose a significant risk to service delivery if not effectively managed” because they divert funds from core functions such as visible policing, detective work and crime intelligence.
He said parliament should require the SAPS to link litigation directly to management performance, noting that “poor consequence management remains a root cause of repeat irregular expenditure and losses”. Without visible disciplinary or criminal consequences, Cameron warned, the financial impact of unlawful arrests risks becoming “an accepted cost of doing business, which is constitutionally unacceptable”.
He also questioned whether the loss control system — the structured policies and procedures that government departments use to manage and recover losses from theft, damage or misuse of state assets — has any effect, given that it is reactive rather than preventative.
Policy and legislative reform should be considered to strengthen accountability, including stronger statutory obligations on the SAPS to recover costs from officials found to have acted unlawfully, he said.
Without such reforms, Cameron said, unlawful‑arrest claims would continue to grow, undermining public trust, weakening operational capacity and placing an unsustainable burden on the public purse.
Assault claims escalated sharply to R813.4m in 2024/25 before moderating to R4.7m in April–September 2025. Wrongful prosecution claims were referred to the National Prosecuting Authority, as those fall outside the police mandate.
Cachalia’s reply places the liabilities within the police’s loss control system, the internal register used to record, track and manage civil claims lodged against the service.
The system captures amounts already paid and amounts claimed but not yet adjudicated, providing a consolidated view of contingent liabilities.
The liabilities include historic claims, such as those arising from the Marikana massacre in the North West, which remain under processing. By situating these within the loss control system, the reply confirms that the R56.7bn figure represents contingent exposure rather than actual expenditure, reflecting the cumulative value of claims pending judicial or settlement outcomes.
The disclosure comes against the backdrop of the police’s quarterly crime statistics. In the fourth quarter of 2024/25, the police recorded 161,672 contact crimes nationally, including murder, attempted murder, sexual offences and assault. Gauteng accounted for 26% of all reported crimes, followed by the Western Cape at 22% and KwaZulu-Natal at 16%.
While overall crime declined 2.91% compared with the same period a year earlier, the concentration of violent crime in these provinces mirrors the regional distribution of civil claims, with Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the North West consistently recording the highest payouts for unlawful arrest and detention.
Earlier in 2025, then police minister Senzo Mchunu reported the police were facing civil claims of more than R14bn for unlawful arrests and detentions, alongside R741m in claims for shooting incidents.
The SAPS’ contingent liabilities were already escalating before 2023. In 2021/22, civil claims stood at about R2.2bn covering more than 4,000 lawsuits, with R600m paid in settlements. By October 2022, the auditor‑general noted that contingent liabilities had risen sharply, reflecting thousands of pending unlawful arrest and detention claims. That trajectory set the baseline for the subsequent surge to R14bn in early 2025 and R56.7bn by September 2025.
The updated figures provided by Cachalia indicate a sharp increase in contingent liabilities, reflecting the accumulation of unresolved cases and the scale of litigation exposure.
Section 12 of the constitution guarantees freedom and security, including protection against arbitrary arrest and detention. The volume of claims suggests recurring breaches of these rights, with direct fiscal consequences for the policing budget.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) said cases of torture or assault allegedly committed by members of the police are normally reported to the police, who are obliged to refer them to Ipid. The directorate does not track these cases independently, as the reporting obligation rests with the police.
“In cases where a person is arrested without a probable cause, has spent time in custody and alleges assault, Ipid will investigate allegations of assault, and that person will be advised to litigate against the police for unlawful arrest if he so wishes,” the directorate said.
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