According to the DA, Boksburg North Police Station is 50 per cent short of visible police and nearly a quarter of the members are incompetent in firearm shooting.
This was revealed during an oversight visit by the DA members of parliament to the Boksburg North SAPS on June 18.
Mike Waters MP said: “Visible policing is responsible for the staffing of the Customer Care Centre (charge office) as well as the patrolling of the four sectors within the police precinct.
“However, due to the fact that the station is short of police officers, there are only 13 people on a shift, which makes it impossible for the station to render an optimal service.”
He said an ideal service would be two vehicles patrolling in each of the four sectors at all times.
“This would mean 16 police officers are needed for this task alone, coupled with the staffing of the Customer Care Centre. Taking into account sick leave, holidays and training, each shift should have 25 members or 100 members in total. They currently have 52 members.
“This chronic shortage means that instead of having eight vehicles patrolling at all times, there are only two to three, resulting in some sectors having no visible policing at all.”
“The lack of resources such as vehicles are also hampering the investigation of cases. Given that the station opens 300 to 600 cases per month, detectives need to be fully equipped.”
- Firearm competency
He said as far as firearm competency is concerned, of the 142 police members at the station, 33 are not competent to carry firearms.
“This represents 23 per cent of the entire police strength.
“The consequences of this is that these 33 officers cannot go out on patrols nor respond to incidences and have to be desk-bound and used in the CCC.”
- Unl;incensed firearms
Waters said another hurdle the police station has to overcome is that the precinct has the highest number of licensed firearms in the country, but only two people are assigned to process all the licences.
“The above situation is totally unacceptable and we will definitely be taking this matter up in parliament.
“Despite the chronic lack of police officers and vehicles, the station is ranked the ninth best in the province and the best within its cluster.
“We would like to congratulate all the police officers who work so hard and put their lives in danger in order to keep us safe,” said Waters.
ALSO READ:
Boksburg North police under-resourced – DA
Follow us:
