Kempton SAPS has only ‘half a vehicle’ for visible patrols

Kempton Park Police Station is being crippled by a shortage of visible policing and vehicles.

According to Michael Waters MP, this was revealed in replies to Parliamentary questions asked by the DA.

“Through several questions, Minister of Police Bheki Cele has finally admitted to the paralysing shortages faced by Kempton Park Police Station,” Waters said in a statement.

Currently, Kempton Park Police Station has six sectors with only 45 visible police officers to patrol them with only three vehicles. The Minister has admitted that if all six sectors were to be patrolled by two vehicles at all times, an additional 72 police officers would be needed with an additional nine vehicles, Waters added.

“With only three vehicles for patrolling, one vehicle is used to patrol two sectors. Sectors one and six are paired with one vehicle and two police officers per shift, while sectors two and three are paired and sectors four and five are paired.

“So instead of having two vehicles patrolling each sector 24 hours a day, we in reality only have half a vehicle.

“It is little wonder that crimes such as sexual offences have seen a sharp increase in Kempton Park by 29.5 per cent, while rape has increased by 18.2 per cent, sexual assault by a massive 88.9 per cent, attempted murder by 4.3 per cent, assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm 10 per cent, common assault 26.1 per cent and robbery with aggravated circumstances 6.7 per cent. All these crimes and others are at unacceptably high levels.

“Despite our crime rate being at unacceptably high levels, the Minister has confirmed that the police are unable to fulfil the requirement of two vehicles per sector for visible policing, due to a shortage of resources.”

Waters said international standards state there should be one police officer for every 220 residents. However, based on this calculation, the police are currently about 44 000 officers short. And to add insult to injury, government cut police posts by 2 000 during the last financial year and will cut another 1 000 posts this financial year.

“This, when crime is out of control. We need more professionally trained police officers, not less. We cannot allow this dire situation to continue where our women and children, in particular, live in fear of being raped and murdered. What we need are professionally trained police patrolling our streets 24 hours a day in order to combat the scourge of crime.”