Police Cuts: Ministry planning to cut number of cops in SA

Remember just last week when police admitted that they were losing the war on crime? That admission doesn’t seem to be worth too much as the police ministry is planning quite a few police cuts, 3000 of them to be precise.

Read: “Cops are losing the war on crime” – Police official’s alarming revelation

The police’s 2017/18 annual performance plan revealed that the number of personnel will decrease from 194 431 to 191 431 by 2019/20.

The report tabled to parliament said that the reduction in numbers shouldn’t have a negative impact on police performance.

“It is not expected to reduce the department’s overall performance over the medium-term, as most of its performance targets in relation to the investigation and detection of crime will remain constant over the medium-term”.

The DA have hit out at the police’s decision, highlighting in particular how the Western Cape already has 900 fewer police officers than it did in 2013.

“This means that the actual number of police personnel serving our communities is shrinking. The news that the national ministry is cutting the number of police posts is very worrying, especially since we already have a large shortage of police.” -DA Western Cape spokesperson on community safety Mireille Wenger

Wenger stressed that many of the province’s lowest staffed police stations are in the areas hit by the most crime.

“The latest information I have indicates that 21 police stations in Cape Town have less than one officer for every 500 residents of that precinct, and these are almost exclusively crime-affected communities.”

Other areas have even worse police to resident ratios. Nyanga only has one officer for every 754 residents, while Tableview has one for every 603 and Khayelitsha has one for every 569.

IOL spoke to The Police and Prisons Civil Rights union (Popcru), who represent more than 150000 police officials, the union have called out the decision.

“In the short-term, the decision is not well thought out. It is only with the consistent decrease in crime that such a consideration can be made.”

While SAPS’ daily struggles are hard enough as it is, it seems the Police Ministry intends to make things even more difficult.