Tshwane's Cop Cars In Shoddy State

Maladministration and alleged corruption has hit policing in the capital city Tshwane, with scores of high performance vehicles standing idle gathering dust as police officers battle to stay on the roads. Police management has revealed one in five of Gauteng’s approximately 11,000 vehicles are currently in for repairs.

Other provinces are also experiencing problems: Eastern Cape MEC for safety liaison Weziwe Tikana revealed last month that the East London flying squad had no operational vehicles, citing her department’s “supply chain office and capacity constraints” from the police’s government garage.

An investigation ordered by national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega in April saw the clamping down on alleged corruption relating to contracts with service dealerships by officers at Pretoria’s Silverton police garage.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said the National Commissioner “has instructed the Hawks to investigate the suspected criminal conduct of some of the members“.

“The investigation is at an early stage but arrests are expected given the corrupt conduct management has uncovered,” he said.

Despite the crackdown — which included the changing of commanders and the centralisation of all of South Africa’s police garages — vehicles continue to gather dust because of a lack of spare parts. A Silverton garage mechanic said Phiyega’s shake-up had been good but hadn’t resolved the problems.

“Just look at these 40 cars standing here. Some have been here since January. They should be out patrolling, but the backlog is so bad we can’t get to them. We barely have enough staff to do minor repairs, never mind major ones [repairs],” he said.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale, confirming the national investigation, said, “20% of the province’s police vehicles were receiving attention at garages”.

He said the backlog at Silverton had been in existence for some time.

“The national commissioner initiated an investigation. A report with recommendations was submitted to top management. In April a decision was taken to centralise the police garages under the command of Supply Chain Management’s divisional commissioner.”

He said necessary service contracts were in place to repair vehicles. Makgale said to address backlogs at Silverton garage, numerous changes were made.

“The commander was changed, a new support head appointed. At all the garages, including Pretoria, capacitating with regards to resources [human and capital] was done, artisan and management posts advertised, processes standardised with preference given to repairing operational vehicles.”

Asked if vehicles would be redeployed from elsewhere in Gauteng to assist Pretoria police, Makgale said no. “The change [management] implemented is having a positive effect. Set performance targets will be achieved shortly.”

But police on the ground are sceptical. Pretoria West community policing forum chairman, Nagesh Chetty, said the situation at the station was “critical”.

“Not only are our vehicles stuck at the garage, three of our vehicles have vanished from the garage. When management makes enquiries they’re told they are gone. How can a police vehicle simply vanish? “On top of this the repairs done are shocking. A car is returned and the next day it breaks.”

A flying squad member said they had lost 50% of the vehicle fleet to the garage and even the operational ones were not in good repair.

“Brake pads fall off because they put on the wrong parts because the mechanics can’t get spares. On one Audi S3, brake pads for the Audi A3 fell off.”

A Sinoville police station member said the situation was dire. “No one knows what the problem is. All we know is that we have no cars. We can barely do our jobs.”

A Garsfontein official said things were so bad, members were doing their own minor repairs to the vehicles. “If a light goes, it could take six weeks to replace. So now we do it.

-Graeme Hosken