Only 1.5% of DNA profiles in South Africa completed within 30 days — Daily Maverick

In South Africa, only 1.5% of DNA profiles generated by police in the 2025/26 financial year were completed within the legally prescribed 30-day period. The forensic DNA system has accumulated nearly a quarter of a million overdue forensic materials, Daily Maverick reports.

Dispute over deadlines

Data from the National Forensic DNA Oversight and Ethics Board were presented to parliament by Akona Ndlela. At the same time, the South African Police Service uses a different target of 90 days to assess the processing of DNA profiles, creating a more positive picture.

On October 14, parliamentary committee chair Ian Cameron criticised this approach, stressing that it contradicts the legally established 30-day period and distorts the assessment of the scale of the backlog. The committee demanded more detailed data, explanations regarding unregistered materials and samples in storage, as well as a specific plan to reduce delays.

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Committee members also questioned why nearly 166,000 reference DNA samples remain in secure storage. Cameron said that delays in analysing samples from crime scenes could jeopardise investigations and criminal proceedings, as cases may be postponed or removed from the roll without forensic expert findings.

Violence cases and investigators' workload

The board also reported that 7,182 cases of gender-based violence and femicide were identified as priorities for referral to court over the past year. By comparison, there were 20,492 such cases in 2022/23. South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority assured the board that this reduction had not adversely affected the timely handling of the relevant proceedings, as the number of priority cases still exceeds the number of requests from prosecutors.

During consideration of the budget report, it was also noted that the South African Police Service spent its entire budget in the previous financial year but achieved only slightly more than half of its targets. On October 2, an auditor told parliament about the workload of detectives: of 3,294 investigators, 1,227 have no more than five years of experience, while some staff handle between 600 and 800 cases.