Only ‘half a car’ patrols Kempton Park police precinct
The DA submitted a petition with nearly 5 000 signatures to the Speaker of Parliament.
Kempton Park Police Station needs an additional 72 police officers with an additional nine vehicles to effectively patrol its precinct.
The station has six sectors with only 45 visible police officers with only three vehicles to do their visible policing duties.
This is according to Mike Waters, MP and DA Kempvale constituency head.
In a statement, Waters said Minister of Police Bheki Cele admitted this was required to effectively patrol all sectors with two vehicles at all times.
Waters submitted a petition with nearly 5 000 signatures to the Speaker of Parliament, Thandi Modise, regarding the chronic lack of visible policing and vehicles at this station.
“It is unacceptable that Kempton Park Police Station suffers from crippling shortages of both visible policing and vehicles needed to patrol our streets.
“The decades-long looting, state capture and theft of taxpayers’ money by the ANC has resulted in the country running out of money. This has resulted in National Treasury instructing the police to cut their budget by R20-billion over three years, which may result in the loss of 23 000 police officers,” said Waters.
Through persistent questioning in Parliament, said Waters, Cele finally admitted to the paralysing shortages faced by Kempton Park Police Station.
“Given the chronic shortage of vehicles, where there are 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.
“So instead of having two vehicles patrolling each sector 24 hours a day, we in reality only have half a vehicle.”
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