The North West Provincial Legislature has discovered that there are still police vehicles that are gathering dust, awaiting to be branded and registered months after they were allocated to police stations in rural areas by the National Government. In a week-long oversight visit that commenced on Tuesday at the Morokweng Police Station and Ganyesa Traffic Station by the Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Roads, Community Safety and Transport Management, the provincial police were instructed to submit a distribution plan on vehicles that have since been taken for branding and registration. According to the statement issued, the committee has given the provincial police 14 days to submit the distribution plan.

Other findings that were discovered by the Provincial Legislature at the Morokweng Police Station, include the shortage of staff, non-functional Community Policing Forum (CPF), and a rape case of a minor, allegedly raped by an administrative clerk who worked at the station that was eventually closed.

The presentation done by the Acting Provincial Secretariat, Dimakatso Letsapa, about the Morokweng Police Station, revealed that the station services villages with 170 tuckshops, 7 clinics, 1 non-governmental organisation (NGO), while 90% of the policing area is rural with only 10% of it with tarred roads.

Meanwhile, the committee reportedly also discovered challenges of water unavailability, a lack of generators or back-up electricity to serve people, and long queues of unattended residents.

OFM News