No lights, no police at East Rand police station

This, according to the station’s spokesperson Constable Sharon Tsotsotso, is because almost all of the “essentials” work with power, including computers and telephones, Kempton Express reported.

It also means dockets for opened cases cannot be logged on to the police station’s system and phone calls cannot be made because phones are offline.

“We are basically forced to do everything manually when there is no electricity, which then becomes extra work because when the power is back on, we have to log all that information on to the computers,” Tsotsotso said.

“We therefore struggle to trace dockets, and it takes even longer to register case numbers. And with the computers being down, it also means we don’t have access to our emails.”

This comes after national police spokesperson Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said police and the department of public works had been working on ensuring police stations countrywide were not affected by the blackouts.

Loadshedding did not necessarily hinder police in their work, Makgale said in June.

Key policing duties including conducting patrols, attending to crime scenes and taking statements were not entirely dependent on availability of power, he said.

However, Police Minister Nathi Nhleko earlier this year said not all of the country’s 1 140 fully fledged police stations had generators.

“Of the 1 140 police stations, 197 do not have generators. Of the 197 police stations, 184 police stations are non-devolved police stations, which is the responsibility of (the department of public works) and 13 are devolved, which is the responsibility of the SAPS,” he said.

– Caxton News Service