Provincial Premier Alan Winde on Thursday said the South African police has lost the war on crime in the Western Cape, pointing out that this is due to lack of management within the police service. 

“Let’s talk about just some of the facts. In our oversight of 151 police stations, we discovered that this province has a shortage of 548 detectives, almost half of the detectives in our province have a caseload of dockets of 200 or more, when the ideal number is between 50 and 60,” Winde said. 

“A shocking 57 percent of detective commanders and 48 percent of detectives have not even undergone the requisite training, while only two percent have had any specialist training. Our detectives are also working without the tools they need to do their job. About 71 percent don’t have informers and more than half of our detectives do not even have a firearm. I can assure you the gangsters have guns, many of them from the police’s own armoury,” he added.

Winde was delivering his state-of-the-province address during the official opening ceremony of the Sixth Provincial Parliament in Cape Town.

He said, while the provincial government was grateful that President Cyril Ramaphosa has approved the deployment of the South African National Defence Force to the province, this was a clear admission that the police has lost the war on crime in the province.

“What we need is a functioning police service, which is fully resourced and well led, instead of plasters to temporarily plug the wound,” said Winde.