In a bid to provide quality service to its residents, Gauteng Department of Community Safety delivered a mobile police station to the residents of Soshanguve, North of Pretoria on Thursday.
Nontsikilelo Sisulu the Head of Department from Gauteng Department of Community Safety said that over the past 5 years they have been monitoring Police Stations through the crime statistics released by South African Police Services (SAPS), as well as through the monitoring work that the Department of Community Safety does through the Provincial Secretariat Program. The provincial secretariate does the monitoring work for all police stations and part of the work they do is to ensure police stations are fully functional the crime levels and kind of crimes their experiencing or faced with in every community.
There are 40 Police stations that South African Police Services has identified, the Department has identified 15 that have high level of crime. mostly house robberies , business robberies, car jacking’s , rape, murder and various forms of assault. The Police are running short of Human resources as well as vehicles so every shift they will have to prioritize areas that are stranded and suffering the most in terms of access to Police services instead of having all the Police at the Police station.
“To the extent to which the communities are able to access and get to them and is closer to the people because it is mobile yes it is safe to say it will help them to have access to Police.”
Soshanguve Police Station Commander Brigadier Michelle Toohey “I’m so happy to receive this mobile community services center so that the services we render can actually take down to the community so as a collective we are waiting to utilize the mobile community services center, as much as possible we have our challenges but with the help of the community Policing forum, and Department of Community Safety we are going take down those services to the community.”
