Police Flying Squad in major South African city has only one vehicle to serve 1.2 million residents
The Port Elizabeth Flying Squad is operating with just one response vehicle, an old bakkie with 300,000 kilometres on the clock, to serve 1.2 million residents.
This was one of the findings of the DA’s oversight visit to the Port Elizabeth Flying Squad, Provincial Anti-Gang Unit (AGU), and K9 Unit.
Ian Cameron, a member of parliament and the DA’s deputy spokesperson on Police, said that policing capacity in Nelson Mandela Bay is in a dire state.
“The Flying Squad is on the brink of collapse, and the Anti-Gang and K9 Units are struggling to operate under extreme resource constraints,” he said.
He said the oversight visit revealed serious operational challenges, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of support for police officers.
Parliament has previously directed the SA Police Service to address the collapse of the Anti-Gang Unit and Crime Intelligence in Nelson Mandela Bay.
However, the latest information indicates that this directive did not lead to improved conditions for the police in the city.
Cameron said that the Anti-Gang Unit, with nearly 100 members, is forced to operate with fewer than five operational vehicles.
It also operates in high-risk environments, without safe houses, and with no completed security vetting, all while having an annual budget of only R6 million.
The K9 Unit faces similar challenges. It currently has 22 operational members, roughly four per shift, and 13 dogs.
However, the unit has no high-performance vehicles, only basic bakkies, and the specialised dogs have no dedicated cars of their own.
There is no groundsman, leaving officers to maintain the kennels and facilities themselves.
Port Elizabeth Flying Squad barely functioning
Cameron said the Port Elizabeth Flying Squad, once the backbone of rapid response in the metro, is now barely functioning.
The unit only has one vehicle, an old single-cab bakkie with over 300,000 kilometres on the clock, which needs to serve 1.2 million residents.
“They have no high-performance vehicle available. They had one BMW before the oversight visit, but it broke down soon after they received it,” Cameron said.
The unit currently has 56 operational members who need to share the one single-cab bakkie to serve residents.
A few years ago, this Flying Squad deployed between 15 and 20 vehicles per shift. “They now only have one vehicle for every shift,” he said.
It is so bad that the Flying Squad members in Nelson Mandela Bay take leave and call in sick if they see there are no vehicles.
“The ones who can’t take leave go and sit at a charge station, or they ask the Canine Unit if they have space for them to give support,” he said.
These are not the only problems. Firearm training occurs only once every five years, and the Accident Response Team lacks proper safety gear.
Cameron said the result is that Nelson Mandela Bay basically does not have a rapid response police unit.
“This is a region where abalone poaching is getting worse and turning violent. It goes hand-in-hand with organised crime and gang violence,” he said.
The statistics revealed the problem. Despite the serious crime problem in the region, the Flying Squad had only processed three incidents over the weekend.
So, while the city’s residents have grown and crime has become a bigger problem, the Flying Squad’s capacity had declined significantly.
“The criminals in Nelson Mandela Bay know this and do whatever they like whenever they like,” Cameron said.
Oversight visit by Cameron and his team
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