Police vehicle fleet crisis – 4000 vehicles out of service and over 1000 made redundant in 5 Provinces
18 March 2021
Parliamentary replies to written Democratic Alliance (DA) questions to the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, have revealed that SAPS is facing a disproportionately high rate of vehicles that are either out of service or have been made redundant. This high vehicle attrition rate has an immediate impact on service delivery and the fight against crime, especially on critical functions such as visible policing, rural safety and detective work.
With rising crime levels and an increasing loss of confidence in SAPS among ordinary South Africans, it is imperative that Cele provides a clear national plan of how his Department intends to replenish the police’s rapidly depleting police fleet and speed up the repair of vehicles that have been put out of service. Anything less will only serve to weaken the police service, increase the prevalence of crime and further compromise the safety of crime weary South Africans.
Data on the current status of the police vehicle fleet, received from 5 Provinces, is as follows:
|
Province |
Police vehicles out of service |
Redundant/Boarded Vehicles |
|
KwaZulu Natal |
2574 |
133 |
|
Northern Cape |
352 |
352 |
|
North West |
181 |
64 |
|
Western Cape |
1291 |
334 |
|
Gauteng |
- |
266 |
|
TOTAL |
4398 |
1149 |
Information from Statistics South Africa’s (StatsSA) Victims of Crime Survey (VOCS) has shown that people are always complaining about SAPS’s slow response time to emergency calls. At the extreme end, residents in Northern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga complained that it took police an average of two hours to respond to an emergency call. A declining police vehicle fleet will only worsen this dire situation and put many lives at risk.
The DA holds the view that budget cuts to SAPS proposed by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech, should not be used as an excuse to compromise the effectiveness of the police service to respond to crime and keep people safe. The priority must always be to ensure that SAPS resources are spent on police services that serve communities directly.
We will use our presence on the Police Portfolio Committee in Parliament to ensure that the police budget is spent on critical functions such as visible policing and rural safety. Part of that focus is to fight for a mobile police service that is well capacitated through a well-resourced vehicle fleet.
Issued byOkkie Terblanche,DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Police, 18 March 2021
