Sector vehicles take too long to respond
Sekoma reassured attendees that strategies were in place to better deal with the monitoring
NORKEM Park SAPS’ station commander, Col PP Sekoma, was surprised to hear that his sector vehicles took up to 45 minutes to respond.
He was especially astonished because, according to statistics, Norkem Park SAPS had seen a remarkable drop in crime, thanks to the new re-zoning of the policing areas.
“Our sector vehicles shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes,” Sekoma explained at the Norkem Park CPF annual general meeting on September 4.
According to him, Norkem SAPS had only failed in five sections that police stations were tested against, a big improvement from the previous year’s 13.
Sekoma was responding to the community’s complaints about the slow response of sector vehicles, with one woman saying it sometimes took more than one phone call to get them to react.
“Just a week ago, I had to call the sector vehicle three times. It took them almost an hour to get to our house. It’s unacceptable,” she said.
Sekoma went as far as offering his cell phone number to the audience so they could call him if sector vehicles took too long to respond.
People’s anxiety was also intensified by the fact that since the re-zoning of sectors, Norkem SAPS would have a bigger area to police, and “how could policing possibly improve if there were larger areas to police”, the committee expressed.
Sekoma reassured attendees that strategies were in place to better deal with the monitoring.
“The sector team will target all the problematic areas and divide the sector into smaller numbers so we can move with crime fighting. So far, we have one vehicle patrolling in each sector and two additional cars doing rounds in the problem areas, including Edleen, Van Riebeeck Park and Birchleigh North.
“Also, I would like to remind the public that resources will always be a problem, the police can always use more resources. But unfortunately, we just have to make the best of what we have.”
But nonetheless, the committee did remain positive that things could improve.
“The CPF’s working relationship with the police is continuing to progress and we are definitely committed to ensure that community policing remains a vital partner of the police in the fight against crime,” Manfred Molomo, secretary of the CPF, said.
Another positive aspect in the past year was the advancement of community patrolling by CPF members and volunteers, which had seen “remarkable improvement in the past year”.
In conclusion, the committee remained positive that crime levels would improve and relations between the CPF and police would become better if they all worked in unison.
“From my side, I am positive that all problems can be resolved if everybody works together and respect each other. We are not perfect, although we strive to always give 100 per cent in the work we do for the community. Everything is about the community and we are all part of that one community,” Jan Vermaak, PRO of Norkem Park CPF, concluded.
