SAPS may take more than an hour to get to you

11 April 2024

In response to a parliamentary question posed by the DA, the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, revealed that in the Northern Cape, it takes more than an hour on average for the South African Police Service (SAPS) to respond to a violent crime or a crime in progress.

According to the Minister’s response, the average time that it takes police stations linked to 10111 command centres in each province to respond to the scene of an ongoing and/or violent crime is as follows:

Eastern Cape: 30m06s

Free State: 29m59s

Gauteng: 11m56s

KwaZulu-Natal: 21m44s

Limpopo: 16m14s

Mpumalanga: 23m13s

North West: 36m01s

Northern Cape: 60m10s

Western Cape: 17m57s

From these response times, criminals have all the time in the world to do their bidding without any fear of SAPS intervention.

It was also revealed that whereas the Eastern Cape and the Free State have four (4) 1011 command centres each, with Mpumalanga standing at three (3) and Limpopo at two (2), the rest of the provinces – including Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Western Cape – are allocated only a single one.

It is no wonder that SAPS has allowed organised crimes, such as those related to gangsterism, to run rampant in provinces such as the Western Cape.

These figures come on the back of a previous response wherein it was revealed that 10111 centres across South Africa were grossly understaffed, with the SAPS managing to deploy only about 40% of what it considered to be the ideal staff complement to 10111 centres, nationally.

In the 2021/2022 financial year, call centres in Gqeberha were reported by the Minister to have suffered 110 493 “dropped calls”, in Maitland the number was reported to have been a total of 501 978, and in Midrand, a staggering 1 604 370.

We cannot allow South Africans to be left in the lurch when they are at their most vulnerable. These response times are simply not acceptable in a time when more than 85 people are murdered and 594 violently assaulted in our country each and every day.

The Minister has failed in his mandate to keep South Africans safe and secure and it is high time that we vote him and the incompetent ANC out of government on 29 May.

A DA-led government will ensure that police services are properly capacitated and appropriately funded to fulfil their crucial functions. A vote for the DA is a vote to Rescue SA from the scourge of violent crime and an ineffective centralised police force.

Issued by Okkie Terblanche, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Police, 11 April 2024