/ 1 October 2012

AG lashes police for sorry state of 10111 call centre

Nearly 60% of crimes reported to the police's 10111 call centre do not get registered properly.
Nearly 60% of crimes reported to the police's 10111 call centre do not get registered properly.

The Star reported on Monday that during his annual audit, auditor general Terence Nombembe said the claims contained in the South African Police Services' (SAPS) 2011/12 annual report, which was tabled in Parliament on Friday, could not be verified because of a lack of administrative control.

Nombembe gave the SAPS an unqualified audit.

So-called "positive incident reports" to 10111 call centres had to be entered on the police service's case administration system (CAS) to generate a docket with a case number. But 58% of positive incident reports were not linked to dockets on the CAS.

Earlier this year the Pretoria News reported that the majority of South Africans had bad experiences with the emergency number's call centre.

Some said their calls were dropped, while others said they were transferred to the wrong police station or weren't answered at all.

Irregular spending
In his report, Nombembe also raised concerns about irregular spending in the service.

The department left a little over R617-million of its 2011/12 budget unspent, which included R525-million for administration and R92-million for detective services.

Nombembe said this "essentially comprises an underspending on capital infrastructure [R266-million, or 28.5%] and on the revamp of the criminal justice system [R350-million, or 19%]", adding the extent of possible irregular spending by the service was still under investigation.

He said corruption was linked to "possible irregular procurement" with regards to the SAPS firearm registration system, the refurbishment of Nyalas (police armoured vehicles) and the terrestrial trunk radio contract.

"This possible irregular procurement is still under investigation as these contracts are complex, technical and voluminous of nature," he said, adding the contract would be referred to the national treasury due to the legal complexities of the contracts. – Additional reporting by Sapa