Times Of Swaziland: OVER 30 POLICE VEHICLES ROTTING, PARTS LOOTED

OVER 30 POLICE VEHICLES ROTTING, PARTS LOOTED
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BY SIBUSISO ZWANE on 06/12/2021 09:01:00


MANZINI - Rotting, depreciating and allegedly being looted!
This is what is happening to over 30 police vehicles, which have been parked at
the Matsapha Police Academy for over three years. Worth noting is that, this is
happening at a time when the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) is facing a
serious challenge of shortage of vehicles yet their workload is increasing day
after day. The police cars include bakkies, sedans and kombis. According to
sources within the police service, some officers have been allegedly helping
themselves to parts of the cars over the past three years as the vehicles had
been lying idle at the Matsapha Police Academy.
According to insiders, the service is having a serious challenge in terms of
vehicles as some police stations only have one car, which, sometimes they have
to kick-start because of some mechanical faults. As such, they said the police
usually fail to attend crime scenes on time. They said according to information
received from the management of the law enforcement agency, the cars had been
written off as they were unserviceable, but they said they believed that the
organisation should have made means to service some of them, especially during
the ongoing unrest as they were stretched. Again, they suggested that government
should have at least auctioned the vehicles in order to boost its coffers and
buy new ones.
They highlighted that police across the country sometimes had to hitch rides
from members of the public to get to crime scenes and when performing other
duties because government was failing to service the vehicles or auction them in
order to purchase new ones. “A majority of police stations and posts,
especially in rural areas, have one car and this situation is not new as there
were reports on same in the past years,” the insiders said.
Unrest
For example, they said one of the police stations which was facing a challenge
of vehicles, was the Mankayane Police Station, yet its duties were increasing
due to the ongoing unrest. They said the police were usually forced to hitchhike
to crime scenes and a recent incident was where farm dwellers at Nsuka attacked
a farm owner, a police officer and two other men and also torched the
businessman’s car as the police arrived about two hours after they were called
and they found that the vehicle had been reduced to ashes and five people
injured, including one of the community members who was shot by the law
enforcer.
“Most of the time, in some of the affected police stations and posts, police
officers from General Duty, Traffic Department and Criminal Investigations
Department (CID) share the same car,” the sources said. On top of that, they
said police officers from the Traffic Department usually used a private vehicle
to stage roadblocks, where they came face-to-face with armed robbers and drug
dealers among other dangerous people. “We are approaching the festive season,
where the pro-democracy movement is fighting for an all-inclusive dialogue, with
insufficient cars,” the sources said. They emphasised that the outbreak of
COVID-19 and ongoing political unrest had made the situation worse.
They said in 2019, the police post at Ngudzeni was without a vehicle for about a
year and sometimes they had to depend on Dumako Police Post for a vehicle, which
also strained them. Once more, they added they sometimes had to push exhibits in
a wheelbarrow to court as the sole car they had would either be in use or had
developed mechanical faults.
Meanwhile, Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Public Works and
Transport Thulani Mkhaliphi said there was no way they could know conditions of
vehicles until they were presented for diagnosis and fixing. Therefore, he
referred this publication to the relevant department, which is the police
organisation. On the other hand, Chief Police Information Communications Officer
Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said the police vehicles in question were
declared unserviceable. She said they were told that the vehicles would be taken
to the Central Transport Administration (CTA) where they were told that the
vehicles would be accepted once the administration had space for them. She said
CTA was auctioning other vehicles and that would give space for the cars parked
at the Matsapha Police Academy.
“We appreciate the effort that had been done by government as it purchased a
new fleet for the organisation,” Vilakati said. She added that even though the
cars had been delivered, they were not enough as the police responsibility
increased day after day. She also alluded to the fact that some police stations
were operating with only one car. She also added that most of the motor vehicles
operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 30 days per months, thus  they
could not last long. However, when she was told that the vehicles had been there
for over three years and their value was depreciating as they were rotting and
allegedly being looted by some police officers, she said she was not aware how
long the cars had been parked at the Matsapha Police Academy. “We do not
auction cars, but government does,” Vilakati said.
Targeted
Worth noting is that, recently, the police claimed that the vehicles seemed to
be targeted as three of them were allegedly shot at. One was allegedly shot
twice at KaHlobile in Matsapha, while another was shot at five times at KaKhoza
in Manzini. Another was reported to have been shot at three times in Malkerns.
Recently, a businessman Michael Toepfer said during the June/July 2021 unrest,
he fixed two police cars at Malkerns Police Station as most of the vehicles they
had mechanical faults. There are other businesses, like the Eswatini Bankers
Association which donated cars to the police service.