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The Minister of Police has revealed shocking data on 10111 call centres, showing that it takes an average of 42 minutes to dispatch a unit to a call and for the dispatched unit to then respond. This has been revealed in response to a parliamentary question that I posed to him. Nationwide, it takes on average 20 minutes to dispatch a unit to a call and a further 22 minutes for the dispatched unit to respond. To say that this is a systematic service delivery failure is an understatement of note - the fact is that the ANC government continues to fail miserably in delivering this crucial service to South Africans. The situation is exceptionally serious in the Eastern Cape, where in Mthatha for instance the reply states that it takes 327 minutes (almost 6 hours) to dispatch a unit to a call, and another 75 minutes for the unit to respond. In Port Elizabeth there is an average 50 minute wait for the unit to be dispatched and for a response; in Queenstown it takes 54 minutes alone for the unit to be dispatched. The situation is also extremely serious in the North West, where a response time of up to four hours has been recorded. The reply further revealed that, out of the 20 call centres nationwide, only 3 have the staff complement required to operate at full capacity. All except Gauteng (12%) and Phuthaditjhaba in the Free State (full capacity) are at least 20% understaffed, with the highest vacancy rate being 85% in Mpumalanga. The information provided raises some serious questions as to what is really going on at some of these call centres. The Queenstown call centre had a R331 000 budget overrun (equivalent to a 45% budget overrun), 8 more staff members than required for optimal functioning and yet only answered 3615 calls last year. If one divides the total number of calls per person, it is equivalent to 1 call every 3 days per staff member. What is even more incredible is that the average time for the call centre to dispatch a unit was 54 minutes - almost a full hour and at this very same call centre, a caller waited 15 minutes for the phone to be answered. This is nothing short of chronic service delivery failure and some serious explaining needs to be done. Other significant information in this reply includes:
• The Mthatha call centre in the Eastern Cape's total expenditure for 08/09 was R1 406 721 and they received 5415 calls. The expenditure versus call rate, makes this the most expensive (and most inefficient) centre at R260 per call. This is in contrast to the Polokwane call centre, which reported expenditure of R311 633 and received 334 272 calls in the same period, equivalent to R0.93 per call.
• The Northern Cape call centre does not have the adequate equipment to be able to generate statistics. The statistics, if available, would most likely be quite appalling considering the 68% vacancy rate at the call centre.
• Mpumalanga's three call centres are not fully operational and have the highest vacancy rate of 85%. Despite this, the three call centres spent almost R2m in 2008/2009.
A full copy of the reply, including data for each province, can be downloaded from the DA Media Centre <http://www.mailfire.co.za/link/QlJVTj0xMzgwOSZMSUQ9NTQ2MjEmU0lEPTEwMTk1MzY=.aspx> . In addition to all of this, we will submit further parliamentary questions to obtain a more detailed breakdown of the total call waiting times. The data provided in this reply suggests that most call centres pick up calls within less than a minute, yet earlier this year the Auditor General revealed that a total of 100 739 calls had been abandoned during 2008/09, and that more than 50,000 had been abandoned while in a call queue. It is difficult to reconcile the Department's parliamentary reply with the AG's data. It is particularly essential now that the Police Department properly implements the Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) policy. At a SCOPA hearing in July this year MPs heard that roughly 12,000 SAPS vehicles still have not been fitted with these systems, which link vehicles to the call centres. Parliament also heard that only the Western Cape and Gauteng had centrally monitored AVL systems. These AVLs are intended to assist in effectively dispatching vehicles and the fact that not all vehicles are fitted with AVLs, and not all provinces are centrally monitored, is clearly hindering the optimal functioning of the call centres. I will be writing to the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police this week to request that the police commissioner be asked to appear before the committee in order to explain these serious shortcomings, as well as the underspending and overspending highlighted in this report, and his plans to remedy this.
No of call centres Vacancy Rate Budget Expenditure 08/09 Total Received Calls 08/09 Average time to dispatch a unit Average time for dispatched unit to respond to call
Eastern Cape 5 21% R 8,052,135 313,761 92 minutes 18 minutes
Free State 4 24% could not be established 219,454 24 minutes 24 minutes
Mpumalanga 3 85% R 1,946,622 not fully operative 7 minutes 42 minutes
Gauteng 1 12% could not be established 4,812,012 8 minutes 35 minutes
KwaZulu-Natal 3 21% could not be established 1,472,436 11 minutes 16 minutes
Limpopo 1 21% R 311,633 334,272 3 minutes 7 minutes
Northern Cape 1 68% could not be established "no statistic available due to inadequate equipment" "no statistic available due to inadequate equipment" "no statistic available due to inadequate equipment"
North West 1 42% could not be established 52,960 6 minutes 21 minutes
Western Cape 1 34% R15,735,632 1,571,588 11 minutes 27 minutes