Tsakani – The DA has alleged that the safety of residents in Tsakani is being endangered by a severe shortage of operational vehicles and limited resources at the Tsakane Police station.
According to the DA’s political head in KwatsaDuza, Madeleine Hickling, response times at the police station are slow, and residents often travel long distances only to be turned away because the station does not perform certain functions.
“These functions include document certification, which should be made available at satellite stations closer to their homes,” she said.
These issues were uncovered during a recent DA oversight inspection conducted by Hickling, alongside Michael Sun, MPL, DA spokesperson for Community Safety, and DA PR Clr Strike Mhlaba.
The visit included a scheduled meeting with Tsakane Police Station management and members of the Tsakane CPF.
“Upon our arrival on February 11, we found the police station closed, leaving residents without access to essential services.
“The reason is that the building was undergoing fumigation and there was ‘insufficient time to notify the community of the inconvenience,’ cited Hickling.
She further stated that the first-quarter crime statistics for Tsakane Police Station, as reported by the Institute for Security Studies, show 160 house break-ins, 447 drug-related crimes, and 63 attempted murders, among other offences.
“Despite these concerning stats, resources at these relatively new police stations are notably thin. The station has four sectors with only four vehicles operating across two 12-hour shifts to serve over 400 000 people in an area of nearly 20 square kilometres.
“Ideally, each sector should have two to three vehicles per shift. Compounding this, there is a shortage of police, with staff appointments frozen,” she mentioned.
“The 170 volunteers in the CPF are doing their best, but they are under-resourced, lacking torches, reflective jackets, and radios.”
The DA urges Premier Panyaza Lesufi to work with his national counterpart, Minister of Police Firoz Cachalia, to address resource shortages at Tsakane Police Station, upgrade the station to Brigadier status to facilitate the opening of a satellite station, and fill vacant funded posts.
Madeleine Hickling during the oversight inspection. Photo: DA
Gauteng police spokesperson Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi responded that resources could never be enough, but that stations throughout the province are provided with the necessary resources to carry out their mandate.
Nevhuhulwi highlighted that, every financial year, the provincial commissioner, through Provincial Supply Chain Management, assesses the specific needs of police stations, taking into account factors such as population density and environmental design.
“The average response time for the station in question is set at 15 minutes, but the station is currently responding by 12 minutes, which is three minutes less than the baseline. All police stations offer certification and affidavit services and no one should be turned away when requesting any services at the stations.
“The crime stats released for Quarter 1, April to June 2025, indicated that Tsakane station recorded 32 attempted murder cases and 71 house break-ins,” she said.
She urged the public to verify this information by checking the audited and released stats on the SAPS website.Nevhuhulwi added that on February 11, the station was closed for fumigation from 11:00 to 16:00.
“As a contingency measure, a site was temporarily identified to be used as a Client Service Centre (CSC) and members were posted at the entrance of the police station to direct the public,” she concluded.
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