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The SAPS Gauteng Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Elias Mawela has responded to the DA’s email requesting his urgent intervention to ensure that electricity is restored immediately at Garankuwa Police Station and that the police station is restored to its full operations so that residents can have access to the police services which ensures their safety.

In his response, Lieutenant General Mawela acknowledges the challenge of the electricity supply at the Ga-Rankuwa police station. He states that the police station is currently operating with a standby generator and is following procurement processes to replenish the diesel fuel. A second generator was provided to the station as an additional backup and is being installed. The Divisional Commissioner: Supply Chain Management is finalising the procurement of electrical heavy current services to resolve the challenge at the police station, and it is envisaged that an order in this regard will be issued before 4 February 2022.

Furthermore, he states that the station is equipped with notebooks that can be utilised with charged batteries and 3G or 4G connections.

The DA’s intervention has now forced the SAPS Provincial Commissioner to act as the police station has been without electricity for several months, dating as far back as October 2021, when allegedly the cables feeding electricity from an Eskom sub-station were severely damaged and stolen. This resulted in the police station, court and mortuary being left in the dark.

This situation is affecting the police station’s operational services and putting the safety of residents and police officers who specifically work night shifts at risk. The ongoing electricity outage has resulted in the station not being able to connect its computers and therefore it also has no access to the 10111 helplines. This means, that the station cannot effectively respond to the calls received on this emergency helpline.

The DA visited the police station to confirm whether there is progress based on the response from the SAPS Provincial Commissioner. We discovered that the second generator was delivered to the station last week Friday. The service provider has been appointed to do fault finding and they are scheduled to complete the work in two weeks, thereafter they will send the report to the SAPS who will then hire another service provider to restore electricity. There is no timeframe as to when electricity will be restored.

With regards to notebooks, there is only one laptop that has been installed with a 3G card to enable one detective to work from home while the rest of the laptops including the management do not have 3G cards. This means that the police officers are unable to do their work due to power outages and the most affected people are the residents who are dependent on police to prevent and fight crime.

We will be responding to the SAPS Provincial Commissioner’s letter demanding him to provide us with a timeframe as to when electricity will be restored at this station. We also demand to know how many laptops or notebooks and 3G or 4G cards were issued to this station. This will assist in determining the whereabouts of the resources which are needed to deliver services to our people.

We will continue to put pressure on SAPS Provincial Commissioner to restore electricity at Ga-Rankuwa Police Station and to ensure that this police station is adequately equipped with all the basic necessary resources to ensure the safety of Ga-Rankuwa residents.

DA Gauteng Spokesperson for Community Safety, Crezane Bosch MPL