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The DA in the Western Cape is appalled by the conditions of the police stations servicing Bitou Municipality. This comes after two days of oversight visits, where we discovered that Plettenberg Bay and KwaNokuthula Police Stations are completely inadequate to protect residents in these communities.

We will invite the National Minister of Police, the Provincial Minister for Community Safety and Police Oversight and the SAPS Western Cape Provincial Commissioner to an urgent meeting of the Standing Committee on Community Safety to discuss the state of policing infrastructure in the Bitou area.

Upon visiting to the Plettenberg Bay Police Station on Tuesday, it was found that this station does not have functional plumbing or flushing toilets in the detention cells, despite being renovated in 2013. Staff have to manually unblock drains and ensure that toilets are functioning. The station’s SAPS 13 room, where evidence and exhibits are kept, does not have any ventilation and poses as a direct health hazard to SAPS members.

Additionally, there are no wheelchair ramps or ramp access points even though it is built on three different levels. The elevators were also not working while various fire extinguishers were discovered to be broken and defective. It has reached the point where staff at the station had even listed a myriad of complaints, which included not having a functioning photocopying machine in the Client Service Centre (Charge Office).

Yesterday, we spent time assessing the quality of services provided at the KwaNokuthula Police Station. This station covers the KwaNokuthula community as well as residents in Kranschhoek, which is 20km away. It became very clear that the police station is completely inadequate and not fit as a place of work for these hardworking SAPS members.

The only brick and mortar building on the property is only able to house a small charge office and the station commander’s office. All other policing services are offered from old and broken prefabs, where the case files are kept in a shipping container and where there is insufficient space to store documents and exhibits. Owing to this setup, there is no facility to detain suspects. Detained suspects have to be taken to Plettenberg Bay Police Station where only two detention cells are functional.

MPP Gillion Bosman says: “We cannot have a situation where there are holes in the ground of old shipping containers being used as a police station for the community. SAPS needs to urgently address the lack of detention facilities at both KwaNokuthula and Plettenberg Bay Police Stations. The working conditions and infrastructure are not suitable for these professionals and it further reflects the failure of our centralised police system.”

issued by Gillion Bosman, MPP - DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Community Safety