Michelle Pietersen
REVELATIONS that the SAPS spent less than 30 percent of its R1.2 billion budget for infrastructure – which includes upgrading and building new police stations – has incensed MPs.
Sindi Chikunga, chairwoman of the National Assembly’s police committee, said yesterday that the SAPS management, “as a collective, must take responsibility” for failing to deliver on one of its priorities. At the end of December last year, the SAPS had spent R354m, or 28.7 percent, of its infrastructure allocation.
In the meanwhile, SAPS members have been locked out of premises or evicted from buildings across the country due to non-payment of rent or expired leases.
“Police stations are shacks… from what we have seen… Now you are telling us you are under-spending. We heard you are being evicted every now and then, it’s an embarrassment,” said ANC MP George Lekgetho.
MPs heard yesterday that SAPS members had been locked out of premises used by the Kirstenhof, Western Cape, police station and its detective unit, the Mossel Bay Local Criminal Record Centre, KwaZulu-Natal’s Port Shepstone Vehicle Investigations Services unit, as well as at sites at Langpoet, Bellvue and Kramberg High in the Eastern Cape.
In addition, the SAPS faced lockouts or eviction from four sites in Limpopo; three in the Western Cape, including Mitchells Plain; and one each in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Cope MP Mluleki George said this was clearly undermining the SAPS.
Criticism was unabated when the police top brass, led by acting national commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and including Hawks boss Anwa Dramat, appeared before the committee to present a report on the police’s quarterly expenditure.
Mkhwanazi said that as the SAPS management, they acknowledged there were serious problems.