The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) have set themselves an impossible task with the building of police stations. It is all one big mess with the unlikelihood of it being corrected anytime soon. The Democratic Alliance (DA) has already called for them to give up building their own police stations and we hope they will do just that.

In a presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Police today, the SAPS presented the progress made in the building of police stations. I say progress lightly as there hasn’t been much.

The SAPS building programme identifies 594 projects to be completed, but SAPS is intending to complete only 8 in 2012/13 (having completed nothing in 2011/12) – so it seems clear that they will never, ever complete these 594 projects.

SAPS took it upon themselves to build police stations, but failed to complete a single one last year.

The utter lack of progress on this process has serious implications for service delivery. If there are no police stations in the area for SAPS members to fight crime from, then they won’t be fighting crime.

On top of this, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has revealed that 115 SAPS members are linked directly to the building suppliers, that there are 215 conflicts of interest and that tender processes were flouted and budgets exceeded.

The DA is astounded that as this utterly bizarre situation has continued for years, the new National Police Commissioner has today overseen a presentation that was as chaotic as when it was under the former commissioner, Bheki Cele. She claimed it was not in a mess, despite providing us with clear evidence that it was. She then went on to make the astonishing admission that neither she nor her colleagues had seen the SIU report. As such the corruption revealed by the SIU has not been dealt with and those SAPS members who have links to building suppliers obviously continue to earn huge chunks of cash from these building programmes.

The SAPS has a mandate to fight crime, not to build buildings. It has a mandate to clean out any corruption within its ranks, yet it has done nothing about the corruption revealed by the SIU. The SAPS must deal with this shabby issue once and for all and never again come before the Police Portfolio Committee with nothing but excuses.