The Gauteng Provincial Legislature’s (GPL) Portfolio Committee on Community Safety has today engaged in a fact-finding mission in an effort to establish various means of intervention to address the challenge of Police vehicles taking longer than necessary in Police garages for repairs.
Members of the Committee visited the Pretoria Central Police Garage to establish the main reasons why Police vehicles that should be deployed in communities to fight crime sometimes spend more than 3 months in Police garages for repairs.
During its oversight visits in various Police stations across the Province over the past few months, the Committee established that an average of 34% of Police vehicles were not operational as result of being taken in to garages for mechanical repairs and maintenance.
This became a huge concern to the Committee as these vehicles are deployed in Police stations to serve communities by ensuring effective policing, timeous response to crime scenes, visible policing and general crime prevention. Often victims of crime complain about Police officers sometimes taking over 12 hours to arrive at crime scenes as a result of Police stations not having enough vehicles to serves communities because some vehicles would be in for repairs.
The Committee felt strongly about this matter and undertook to take progressive action to bring an end to this condition that presents some elements of inefficiency on the side of Police to carry out their responsibility of keeping residents safe at all times.
Some of the reasons given by the Pretoria Central Police Garage management as to why vehicles take longer than necessary were procurement policies regulating the outsourcing of vehicle repair and maintenance services. The management feels that these policies delay the process of promptly appointing a service provider to perform the necessary work on a vehicle because they have to send request for quotation and have to wait for 14 days before a service provider is appointed. The management also experience challenges of Police stations bringing in vehicles for repairs without providing adequate information of what the problem is with the vehicle and some Police stations taking too long to retrieve repaired vehicles.
The Committee will compile a report based on its findings and recommendation on this matter and present it to both the MEC for Community Safety and the Provincial Police Commissioner for implementation.
The Committee has vowed to take drastic action against any matter brought before it that hampers the ability of Police officers to perform their duty of keeping residents of Gauteng safe at all times.
ISSUED BY GPL’S MEDIA SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY SAFETY, HONOURABLE MAPITI MATSENA
For interview requests with the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee please contact: Mr Thebe Khumalo on
011 498 5948 / 072 266 1021 email: TKhumalo@gpl.gov.za
