KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi says the exodus of elite Special Task Force members from law enforcement, many of whom are joining private security companies, is worrying.
Mkhwanazi was speaking in Pinetown, where he handed over more than 230 police vehicles to police stations across the province. This comes at a time when inadequate resources have impacted law enforcement’s ability to fight crime, which has contributed to KwaZulu-Natal becoming a crime hotspot.
According to the latest national crime statistics, one in every four murders was committed in the KwaZulu-Natal. In some rural parts of the province, poor roads and access resulted in police experiencing difficulty responding to incidents.
Police say the new fleet will assist in hotpots areas where police stations have been inundated with call-outs. Mkhwanazi has also raised the alarm about Special Task Force members leaving the force to join private security companies. Mkhwanazi says he has escalated the matter to the national office.
“I have raised that concern with my leadership at the head office, something is happening that we don’t know, it just cannot be correct that we are going to have an elite of our service being recruited as security guard, something is odd about it, and in all front if you look at it, there’s something that tells me, something is happening somewhere that we don’t know about. So, I have urged leadership to look at it, unfortunately task force is not commanded in the province, so they are commanded at the national office, but I’m quite aware that there’s quite a number of members that are resigning on a daily basis, not only the special task force, including the NIU, they are leaving in numbers, where they are going it’s a worry for me,”
Police say there’s a shortage of trained police dogs nationally and the shortage has affected them in carrying out search operations. The Pietermaritzburg canine unit, with only two dogs, is in dire need of resources.
One thousand trainees are also expected to join law enforcement as they graduate from the police academy next week.
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