The ManicaPost
WHEN it gets dark in Ga-Rankuwa — which is near Pretoria, South Africa — the police lock themselves in the station because they are afraid of crime.
Since eight months ago, there has been no electricity at the station.
Generators only work sometimes.
When night-shift officers come to work, they make sure their phones are charged so they can have light if the generators stop working again.
And neighbours say that when a cop needs to go to the bathroom, they knock on their door.
After a heated policing portfolio committee meeting on May 18, where chair Tina Joemat-Pettersson said the state of police stations in SA was a “catastrophe” and that the committee got complaints every day, the Sunday Times went to this station and several others.
Mosadiwamaje Mokokong of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union said this week at a meeting between police leaders and unions in parliament on Wednesday that the state of police facilities was contributing to low morale in the force.
“The poor morale of SAPS members has been brought up to management many times, and it has been shown that the poor working conditions of the SAPS, which include old buildings, insufficient staff, and a lack of resources, are to blame.”
On Friday last week, police minister Bheki Cele released crime statistics for the fourth quarter of the 2021/2022 fiscal year, which ran from January to March.
These numbers showed worrying rises.
There was a 22 percent rise in murders, a 13.7 percent rise in sexual offenses, and a more than 100 percent rise in kidnappings.
At Ga-Rankuwa, three small portable lights are charged by small solar panels that are propped up against a window.
When you touched a gas heater, it was cold.
The generator in the parking lot was broken, so the offices and hallways were dark.
The staff said that the generators were turned off to save diesel.
A neighbour said she hears them about three times a week, but other than that, it’s very dark.
Help is given to people who need to certify documents at the entrance next to the security office.
“They lock the gate at night because it’s not safe for us to go and open cases,” said a resident who did not want to be named.
“People are upset that when they want to open a case, they are told there is no electricity. We talked as a group about the risks,” she said.
Another person in the neighbourhood said that at night, crime victims stand outside the locked gate and try to get help.
“Police officers come out of the security room and tell us they can’t help us right now because there’s no power. So, what would happen if someone tried to hurt you that night? Officers at the station told the Sunday Times that they couldn’t talk to them, but Martin Moloto, a member of the Greater Ga-Rankuwa community policing forum, said that the broken police stations were making it hard to get services to people.
“Cases have been opened, and they need to be put on the system, but [then] the power goes out.”
Ward 31 councillor Tshepo Kgatle said that the area had a lot of crime and that the station was locked at night as a safety measure because guns had been stolen from other police stations in the area.
“It doesn’t make us happy.”
Col. Athlenda Mathe, a police spokesman, said that the South African Police Service was working “around the clock” to figure out what was going on. Plans for a permanent solution are “well along the way.”
The Sunday Times went to the Nsuze police station in KwaZulu-Natal, which serves parts of Ndwendwe, KwaMaphumulo, Mshwathi, and Greytown, last week. They found that it had been badly neglected.
A long gravel road that is a nightmare to drive on leads to the station.
Only two of the eight vehicles at the station are working.
The buildings are rusty containers with big holes in the station commander’s office and “boardroom.”
There is also no network coverage, so electronic services like email are not available.
Since two months ago, the taps at the Phoenix police station in Durban have been dry.
This means that 300 staff, detainees, and people from the public can’t use the toilets.
A police officer who didn’t want to be named said, “Things got really hard because the operations were messed up a lot.”
“Alternative plans had to be made to send some detainees to the police stations in Greenwood and Verulam.”
The station used water from tanks until they were empty, so people had to bring water from home.
A police officer said that the old buildings and equipment made the place of work a “nightmare.”
He said that this was made worse by the fact that there were not enough cars.
Ashor Sarupen, the deputy chair of the DA federal council, said that the Kwa-Thema police station in Ekurhuleni is in such bad shape that officers work out of the mess hall.
“The department of employment and labour has shut down most of the building because it is unsafe,” Sarupen said.
“The officers don’t have enough light or a good place to work, and the file room is a mess. There has been an increase in crime in the area, and the terrible conditions are making the police officers feel bad about their jobs.
In Tshwane, the Central Firearm Registry is located in the Veritas building, which has been ruled unsafe for people to live in. The number of people in South Africa for every police officer is 413.
As of the last official count on March 31, 2021, there were 1,155 police stations.
As of the last official count in March 2021, the SAPS has 50,150 cars, 34 planes, 136 boats, 143 pieces of machinery (like forklifts), 972 motorcycles, and 2,744 trailers.
In the last financial year, there were 1,162 cases of police officers getting in trouble, of which 123 were related to Ipid.
And people have to walk through piles of trash to get into the Riebeek East police station near Grahamstown.
The Public Works and Infrastructure Department rents buildings to the police (DPWI).
Cele said at a meeting of the portfolio committee on May 18 that he had asked SAPS to run police buildings many times.
Patricia de Lille, the minister of public works, told the committee that the situation was “a mess.” Joemat-Pettersson replied, “It’s worse than a mess — it’s a disaster.” We can’t fight crime if we don’t have a place to start.”
When asked for a comment, Cele’s office pointed the Sunday Times to his remarks at the release of quarterly crime statistics last week on Friday, where he said that police stations were in bad shape because the public works department wasn’t doing its job.
“It’s sad that when you walk into a police station and see that it’s falling apart, you ask, “What are the police doing?” It’s not the job of the police to take care of government buildings. Instead, it’s the job of other departments, especially the DPW.
“Sometimes, you find out in the morning that you have to leave your home because you didn’t pay your electric bill. You find out that the department has paid DPW for the electricity, but DPW has not paid the landlords. Even though they said they would, the public works department did not answer detailed questions. – Sunday Times.
