Glitch blamed for missing EC crime figures

AT LEAST six Eastern Cape police stations had no crime information for their areas in the 201415 national crime statistics reporting period released on Tuesday by police commissioner Lieutenant-General Riah Phiyega.

The stations included Engcobo, Idutywa, Bizana, Kenton-on-Sea, Kidd’s Beach and Nqamakwe.

Police yesterday blamed the error on a “technical glitch”.

National police spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said the lack of data however had not affected the accuracy of the statistics.

“This technical glitch is being attended to. . . it had no impact on national and provincial crime statistics released on Tuesday.”

The manager of the crime and justice hub at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Lizette Lancaster said the data was in the SAPS file and incorporated in the provincial and national statistics “but it is simply not visible for the individual stations”.

“The station data seems to be missing on the SAPS file because of their technical glitches with the automation process. It seems that during the compilation of the latest crime statistics, the SAPS seemingly fixed the spelling of some of the isiXhosa station names but they did not change these names in their drop down menu. A station like Kidd’s Beach does not work properly because of the apostrophe in the name.”

The integrity of the most recent statistics have been cast into doubt due to changes to some of the previous statistics. According to crime statistics published on September 19 last year the province recorded 3 453 murders compared with 3 441 murders over the same period published on Tuesday, a difference of 12 murders. Other discrepancies included: ● 281 fewer sexual offences, marked down from 9 897 to 9 616;

● 42 fewer robberies with aggravating circumstances after the figure was pared down from 13 485 published on September 19 2014 to 13 443 published yesterday; and

● 107 home burglaries were wiped off the record reducing the number from 24 750 to 24 643.

The statistics are released annually to show a comparison between the years and different level of crimes. Makgale said the country’s crime statistics were being altered as far back as 10 years to comply with new data integrity standards as set down in a memorandum of understanding signed with StatsSA. –