FOLLOWING reports of poor service delivery and difficulties experienced by the community at the Brighton Beach Police Station, DA shadow minister of police, Dianne Kohler Barnard, with ward 66 Councillor JP Prinsloo and Bluff CPF chairman Andy Rossel recently visited the station with station commander, Colonel Ngubane.
The main issues highlighted during the visit, causing concerns for residents, included: poor building maintenance, insufficient vehicles, drivers, shifts and low staff numbers. One of Kohler Barnard’s first observations upon arriving at the station was that it was not receiving assistance from the Department of Public Works in terms of maintaining the building.
Brighton Beach Station Commander Colonel Ngubane said that the station’s building was affected by the recent storms that hit Durban, resulting in certain damages including an air-conditioner hanging by a wire at the entrance of the station. “We have made a report to Public Works about some of the damages and are currently waiting for a response from them regarding our claim,” she said.
Kholer Barnard added: “We’re finding that this is an increasingly problem at the various stations that we go to. Public Works don’t appear for long periods of time and only allocate a small maintenance budget to stations, that really doesn’t go that far in providing them with the resources they need.”
During the oversight visit it was found that although the station was not experiencing issues with staffing due to the recruitment of members in specialised units, they were however short by six members in the detective and crime prevention units, according to the recommended number of staff that are supposed to be employed at the station. In terms of equipment and vehicles, Ngubane could not confirm whether or not the station has a sufficient number of vehicles but did confirm that the vehicles they do have are quite old, but still running.
Bluff CPF chairperson, Andy Rossell said: “I get a lot of complaints from locals all the time and I have found that the station doesn’t always respond quickly to incidents in the area. Even when private security companies have made an apprehension of a suspect they can experience a wait of about two to three hours for the police to arrive at the scene and that to me is a major problem.”
Kohler Barnard said that the crime statistics at the station were not too bad with numbers of murder increasing only slightly whereas assault grievous bodily harm decreased. “It appears that there are no major crimes of any particular note except perhaps your robberies, residential burglaries, theft of motor vehicles and the controversial issue of suspected drug houses in the area,” she said and further insisted that police members work towards keeping crime stats low and respond effectively to address those on the rise.
“There is clearly a notable lack of maintenance, vehicle repairs and assistance being provided by the Department of Public Works at the Brighton Beach SAPS station. As a result police members are forced to work in conditions that hinder their abilities to provide an effective and efficient service to the Bluff community. Kohler Barnard will submit questions to parliament to highlight the current state of our police station. As public representatives, it is our duty to assist these members who place their lives on the line daily to protect our community. We need to ensure we have an honest and professional police service to serve our communities. To ensure this happens, police should become a provincial government responsibly and not a national one. We will continue to fight for a safe community,” said a concerned Prinsloo.
Attempts to contact the Department of Public Works for comment proved unsuccessful.
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