Gauteng has less than half the number of police needed to keep communities safe

3 October 2019

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is shocked to learn that Gauteng has only 27263 police officers to service a population of over 14,8 million people.

This was revealed to me by the Gauteng MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

This means that the ratio is one police officer providing services to 546 residents in Gauteng.

SAPS is currently 64,000 police officers short of meeting the United Nations (UN) policing ratio of 1:220. In South Africa, the police to citizen ratio is 1:380.

The table below shows the number of police officers per district and the population that they service:

These figures clearly indicate that we do not have an adequate number of police officers to prevent crime and ensure the safety of Gauteng residents.

Gauteng is rated number one in the country in terms of violent crimes such as murder while rape, robbery and common assault cases have increased in the province compared to the previous year.

It is unacceptable that crime is increasing in Gauteng while the police are under-staffed, under-resourced and poorly trained.

The only solution to win the fight against crime is to establish a honest and professional police service that is passionate about crime prevention.

The DA calls on MEC Mazibuko and the Gauteng SAPS Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Elias Mawela to liaise with their national counterpart Minister of Police, Bheki Cele to ensure that they hire more police officers in Gauteng.

Issued by Michael Shackleton, DA Gauteng Spokesperson for Community Safety, 3 October 2019