DA allegations unfounded – EMPD

“These accusations are completely devoid of truth. Law enforcement has never had to stop for a period of five months since its inception. Fines have been issued and summonses processed as normal,” he said.

Chief Supt Kgasago said the tender for the supplier to provide fine and summons books had to be advertised because the metro could not find a suitable supplier.

“The tender process to appoint a service provider was started in time, but due to no successful competitive bidders, the bid was not awarded and had to be re-advertised. This is for a complete back office support service including officers’ books. As no tender is in place yet, the department uses mini tenders to purchase officers’ books. The EMPD administrative staff performs all the administrative functions,” he said.

He added that the allegation point about the number of books per precinct was also incorrect.

“The books are not supplied five per precinct as a stopgap measure, but are purchased on the basis of 2 000 books per type of book. About 500 to 600 officers are deployed operationally and from these officers, a large portion perform specialised duties like public order policing and other units do not issue fines but perform more serious types of duties like crime prevention and arrests,” he said.

Chief Supt Kgasago added that the bid process regarding the purchasing of prosecution books is in the final stages of adjudication. He added that the EMPD would not lose profits even if it could not issue fines.

“The EMPD is not a profit making organisation. It does not measure its success of law enforcement based on the income derived from fines. In any case, all income derived from traffic fines ends up in a general income account of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) and not of the EMPD,” said Chief Supt Kgasago.

He added that the EMPD has complied with all the necessary requirements in terms of the supply chain management process in terms of this tender process.