Reality check

THE Port Elizabeth Flying Squad has all but collapsed, with just one operational vehicle left for the entire Nelson Mandela Bay and surrounding areas.

This follows months of pleading by squad members for police bosses to increase their vehicle fleet – but the appeals have fallen on deaf ears.

The vehicle – a sponsored high-performance Chevrolet Lumina – has been the only operational vehicle servicing the Bay and other nearby towns, including Jeffreys Bay and the Addo area, for the past two weeks. There are 16 vehicles – between the Flying Squad and K9 Unit – awaiting repairs and booked into the state garage.

University of South Africa (Unisa) policing lecturer Professor Rudolph Zinn, a former police officer, said organised crime gangs, seasoned criminals and drug dealers would “very quickly” pick up on slower Flying Squad response times.

“Plans should have been made well in advance to ensure more vehicles are on the road and not only one. What one would also often find is that the problems with the Flying Squad, 10111 and the K9 unit are very similar as all the command structures fall under the same management.”

Earlier this month, provincial police spokeswoman Brigadier Marinda Mills said the units had enough vehicles allocated to them, but there was a problem with “constant availability of these vehicles due to repairs and services . . . ”

Mills said provincial police commissioner General Cynthia Binta had launched an investigation.

Mills’s colleague, Colonel Sibongile Soci, said vehicle allocation to the Flying Squad had been prioritised, but failed to say when this would happen.

She said service delivery in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro would not be hampered by the situation.

But, when pushed on how she could say that when only one out of 15 vehicles was operational, Soci said: “I cannot answer that . . . I cannot give a date because I do not have one.”

National police commissioner Riah Phiyega had not responded to questions put to her by the time of going to print

The Flying Squad is meant to be the first responder to crimes in progress, such as robberies and hijackings. But officers at the unit said some of their vehicles had been booked in for repair for almost a year while others – with minor issues – were booked in for months.

“Then when you inquire as to what the hold-up is, it is said that the financial authority to repair the vehicles needs to come from the provincial office,” an officer said. “Everything is sent to the provincial office where it then sits while the cars pile up inside the state garage.”

Adding to their woes, the squad has been ordered by emergency services provincial head Major-General Jones Mbambala to send eight vehicles to other parts of the province for the election next month. “This vehicle problem has been going on for months and we are simply receiving no feedback on what is happening,” the officer said

The vehicle crisis comes just a week after Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa – who was in gang-ridden Helenvale earlier this month to address violence in the northern areas – ordered a clampdown on major drug lords around the country.

But police officers say they are not equipped to deal with the problem. “It is simple: how can we help the other units and arrest people if we do not have cars,” an officer said.

Zinn said: “The provincial commissioner should intervene – that is the commissioner’s job.

“This should be dealt with at the highest level of management and even taken to the national commissioner if need be.”