DA's Mbhele meets with Berea SAPS over area's high crime
The DA’s Shadow Minister of Police says under-staffing at many of the country's police stations is getting in the way of officers executing their duties properly.
Zakhele Mbhele visited Berea Police Station in Durban today - where he met with officers.
The party says the purpose of the visit was to find out why the crime rate on the Berea has gone up, with 6 484 reported crimes in the area for 2016.
Mbhele believes a lack of resources is one of the problems.
"The fixed establishment of the police station - which is the number of funded posts that get allocated to a police station - at this station, it is 135, and I believe there are 12 vacancies currently. It's about a 10% vacancy rate which is not ideal. Ideally, you want your vacancies to be in the low single digits. And that's a situation we find reflected in many stations across the country," he said.