Sitole admits SAPS should have been more effective during unrest
National police commissioner Kehla Sitole has conceded the South African Police Service could have done better in its response during the July unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Police were criticised for what was seen as a lack of action as shops were looted and trashed and property and infrastructure vandalised.
Sitole gave evidence on Monday at the South African Human Rights Commission's hearings into the violence.
"For each and every situation that crops up, your very beginning determines whether you win or lose the battle.
"So we were supposed to be more effective in the beginning but there are factors which weigh or outweighs each other."
Last week, the CEO of the Pietermaritzburg and Midlands Chamber of Business told the commission when she inquired with some local police officers about why they were not intervening, she said they told her they were given orders to stand down.
Sitole says this was not the case.
"All resources of the South African Police Service must be deployed and a written instruction was then complimented through the deputy national commissioner for policing and in any situation, like this there's never any other instruction that would be issued contrary to the instruction are already have given.”
