Oversight visit conducted at Orlando Police Station
This follows the deadly shooting of tavern patrons at Nomzamo Park informal settlement recently.
The chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Community Safety, Alphina Ndlovana and committee members led an oversight visit to the Orlando Police Station on Tuesday.
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This follows the deadly shooting of tavern patrons at Nomzamo Park informal settlement over a week ago.
The purpose of the oversight visits was for the Committee to get a report on the shooting and an outline of safety measures in place by the police station.
The Committee also wanted to make an assessment if the police station has the necessary capacity to effectively deal with issues of crime.
“We want to know after the incident, what has been done in the area in regards to police visibility and other constituency plans between the community, law enforcement and the community policing forum,” Ndlovana began her address.
The Station commander Brigadier Nonhlanhla Khubeka who was joined by General Max Masha and senior management of the police station engaged with members of the Committee.
They called for the intervention of other stakeholders such as Joburg city planning, road agency, City Power, SANCA, Home Affairs and Department of Justice.
Brigadier Khubeka also suggested that there was a dire need for the “national review of the police budget to address shortage of man power.”
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Khubeka revealed in her presentation that between 2017 and 2021 at least 8 people died in tavern related to shootings in Nomzamo, where she explained that the mushrooming of illegal liquor outlets in the area is a leading problem.
“This is not the first time this has happened as such an incident. Following the first incident in 2021, we had an intervention immediately after, where we had a raid,” she said.
“In our response to these, 11 liquor outlets were closed in 2021 and the following year we closed two. We have made sure that these people are not operating because we attend to such call with speed.”
She further suggested that allegation that police did not want to go into the informal settlement were untrue citing that police often had to wait for police backup like in any township.
She added that the police station had measures saying it was all hands on deck with resources and manpower being directed to the area.
“On a 24 hour biases we are deploying sufficient number of police officers especially in Nomzamo, about 72 members per shift at night. We also received members from other units including tactical response unit,” she said.
She further revealed that the five sector vehicles given by the national commissioner during their visit to Nomzamo are not yet operational as they are still awaiting branding.
Khubeka further revealed that the Orlando policing area faced challenges with sector vehicles and police visibility citing slow turnaround time of vehicles in garages as main contributor.
General Max Masha admitted that the police station was understaffed and under resourced adding that there was a need for permanent solutions to ending crime.
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“The root causes of crime are not being addressed. We need long term solutions of reducing crime. The community need to trust the CPF, because that is one of the challenges we are seeing,” he said.
The Major General further gave an update regarding investigation, assuring the committee that arrests would soon be made.
“We can say the Nomzamo shooting was organized. We know who they are and we can assure you that the suspects will be arrested anytime now,” he said.
The Committee concluded its oversight with a visit to the scene of crime.
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