While the National Treasury has earmarked R7.8 billion for the SAPS to hire an additional 5,000 trainees a year, concerns over the low number of police officers remain in the Western Cape.
Also read: All members of the Simon’s Town Community Police Forum resign
Last week, the provincial Police Oversight Department released its latest Policing Needs and Priorities Report, which highlighted that the number of police employed was still declining.
The report found that while there were 21,267 SAPS-funded posts in the province, there were only 18,867 employees as of March 2022.
“Above this, police officers decreased to 15 730 last year from 16 240 in 2021. The 1 118 new recruits announced in December will assist in our capacity, but the vacancy rate is still a concern,” said the DA in response to the report.
According to MEC Reagen Allen, the report highlighted the decreasing number of officers and lack of physical resources.
“It confirms what we see whenever we visit police stations across the province. Dedicated men and women in blue are left to fend for themselves and the various communities they have to keep safe,” said the MEC, adding that the government should ensure officers had the necessary resources and equipment.
“One manner in which this issue can be addressed is by immediately reviewing and amending the formula that is used by national SAPS to allocate SAPS deployments at station levels.”
“It cannot be acceptable that SAPS in Khayelitsha – and so many other areas across the Western Cape – continue to be under-resourced. Khayelitsha’s police-to-population-ratio is one officer for every 628 residents. In Harare it is 1:879 and Lingelethu West, 1:664. The provincial average is 1:378,” he said.
Meanwhile, Western Cape police spokesperson, Brigadier Novela Potelwa said the SAPS were in the process of formulating a response.
“The SAPS in the Western Cape is in the process of finalising a detailed response to the 2021/2022 Western Cape Policing Needs and Priorities Report.”
“Upon finalisation, the detailed response will be tabled before the relevant authority. It would, therefore, be inadvisable to use extracts from the SAPS detailed response to reply to media queries about the policing needs and priorities.
“The risk associated with that is missing context and detail that the full SAPS response seeks to provide. Once the detailed response is presented to the Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety, it will be made available to the media,” Potelwa said.
Also read:
Are police operations having a real impact on crime in Delft?
Picture: South African Police Service