The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is deeply concerned that 1407 police vehicles at Gauteng police stations are out of service.
This was revealed by the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele in a written reply to the DA’s questions tabled in the National Assembly.
According to Minister Cele, at all the police stations in Gauteng there are 498 vehicles for support services which are operational, 1957 vehicles for visible policing and 1919 vehicles for detectives which are operational.
In total there are 4374 vehicles at Gauteng police stations that are operational.
The Minister states that 95 vehicles from support services are non-functional , 802 vehicles from visible policing and 510 vehicles for detective services are out of service.
In total there are 1407 police vehicles in Gauteng police stations that are out of service.
Furthermore, the Minister states that the vehicles allocated to rural safety at rural police stations forms part of the category of vehicles that are allocated to visible policing.
It is worrying that Gauteng is a crime hot spot yet there are a number of police vehicles that are out service.
The lack of adequate police vehicles hampers police service delivery and puts the safety of the Gauteng residents at risk as police officers will not have enough vehicles to ensure police visibility and prevent crime.
The DA calls on both the Minister of Police and the Gauteng MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko to ensure that all the vehicles that are out of service are brought back to the police stations to render services to the residents of Gauteng.
We will table follow up questions in both the National Assembly and the Gauteng Provincial Legislature to ascertain what is meant with ‘ out of service vehicles’ and when will these vehicles be operational again.