Barry Streek
In its tough battle against crime, the police are battling with a chronic shortage of vehicles in South African cities, particularly in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) has estimated that the optimal number of vehicles it needs in Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, East London, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria is 4E271.
But Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete has disclosed, in reply to a question tabled in the National Assembly by the Democratic Party’s Douglas Gibson, that the shortage of vehicles is 1E433. This is 33,6% fewer vehicles than it needs to fight crime in the seven cities.
In Cape Town the SAPS has only 51,9% of the vehicles it needs. The optimal number of vehicles is 881 but it is short of 457. At police stations in the centre of Cape Town the SAPS has only 67 of the 140 vehicles it needs.
In Johannesburg the SAPS has only 43% of the 1 138 vehicles it needs and the shortage is 493. At the Johannesburg Central police station, the SAPS had only 89 of the 149 vehicles it needed but on March 31 this year, 58 of these were being serviced. This means it had only 31 vehicles in operation on that day – 20,8% of the vehicles actually needed.
In Bloemfontein where 112 vehicles were needed, there was a shortage of 14; in Durban the shortage was 145 out of the 934 needed; in East London 37 of the 75 needed; in Port Elizabeth 71 of the 275 needed; while in Pretoria the shortage was 236 of the 727 needed.
In his reply Tshwete also noted that many of the vehicles have clocked up high mileages as well.
At Mitchells Plain the highest number of kilometres travelled by a vehicle was 358E021km; at KwaMashu it was 361E312km; East London, 332E000km; Humewood, 439E669km; Hammanskraal, 391E147km; and at Erasmia (Pretoria) it was 389 124km.
In these circumstances, it is perhaps
not surprising that a leading Johannesburg lawyer was recently told that if he wanted the police to investigate a burglary at his home, he would have to come and fetch them.
ENDS