VISIBLE policing in Kempton Park’s three police precincts is battling to do their job because of under-resourcing.
According to Mike Waters, MP and DA deputy chief whip in parliament, the replies he received to questions asked in Parliament, indicated all three police stations experience need extra manpower and vehicles to do a proper job.
Waters says Kempton Park Police Station’s visible policing is short of 21 police officers, Sebenza Police Station of 16 and Norkem Park of at least eight visible police officers.
“In addition, all three stations are short of vehicles for visible policing – Kempton Park and Sebenza are both short six vehicles, while Norkem Park is in need of one.
“Sebenza and Norkem Park police stations are so severely under-resourced that they cannot provide two visible police officers for the four sectors over the four shifts. They both need a minimum of eight police officers to achieve this,” Waters said.
According to answers he received the ideal situation is for each sector to have two vehicles operating within it at all times with two police officers in each vehicle – in other words, four officers per sector per shift.
None of the police stations in Kempton Park currently meet these standards.
“If we were to achieve the ideal standard, Norkem Park and Sebenza police stations would each need 40 additional visible police officers, while Kempton Park Police Station would need an additional 21.
“By preventing crime before it occurs, the number of cases our detectives have to investigate is also reduced, which allows them to investigate crimes more thoroughly which is currently not the case,” Waters added.
Currently the average number of cases each detective is investigating is: Kempton Park 200, Norkem Park 81 and Sebenza 63, which all exceed the maximum number of 45 cases a detective is supposed to have at any given time.
“I will be writing to the Minister of Police, Nkosinathi Nhleko, requesting an urgent increase in resources required at all three of these stations,” Waters said.
