Hiring private security firms to guard certain police stations was proof that the police had failed to combat crime, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) KwaZulu-Natal leader Lionel Mtshali said on Monday.
In his weekly newsletter, Mtshali said: ”Presumably, the idea is to free fully-trained police officers to perform their core function of preventing and combating crime.”
”This reasoning on the part of the national police service is, in the eyes of many citizens and institutions, proof enough that, by relying on outside help for its own protection, the SAPS [South African Police Service] has essentially failed to fulfill its very core function of preventing and combating crime.”
Security companies had become popular with the public because police response was generally deemed too slow and unreliable.
Police spokesperson Director Phuti Setati said: ”They [the private security guards] are there just to control access. They are not protecting police stations.”
He would comment fully once he had seen Mtshali’s statement. – Sapa