southcapenet | Mar 07, 2012
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 on Tuesday 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 on Tuesday 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 theWestern Cape, including
Mitchells Plain; and one each inKwaZulu-NatalandGauteng.
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. – The Star
