{"id":842985,"date":"2025-11-12T18:48:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=842985"},"modified":"2025-11-12T18:55:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:55:32","slug":"police-flying-squad-in-major-south-african-city-has-only-one-vehicle-to-serve-1-2-million-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/842985\/police-flying-squad-in-major-south-african-city-has-only-one-vehicle-to-serve-1-2-million-residents\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Flying Squad in major South African city has only one vehicle to serve 1.2\u202fmillion residents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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\u202fmillion residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was one of the findings of the DA\u2019s oversight visit to the Port Elizabeth Flying Squad, Provincial Anti-Gang Unit (AGU), and K9 Unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ian Cameron, a member of parliament and the DA\u2019s deputy spokesperson on Police, said that policing capacity in Nelson Mandela Bay is in a dire state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Flying Squad is on the brink of collapse, and the Anti-Gang and K9 Units are struggling to operate under extreme resource constraints,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the oversight visit revealed serious operational challenges, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of support for police officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parliament has previously directed the SA Police Service to address the collapse of the Anti-Gang Unit and Crime Intelligence in Nelson Mandela Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the latest information indicates that this directive did not lead to improved conditions for the police in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameron said that the Anti-Gang Unit, with nearly 100 members, is forced to operate with fewer than five operational vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The K9 Unit faces similar challenges. It currently has 22 operational members, roughly four per shift, and 13 dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the unit has no high-performance vehicles, only basic bakkies, and the specialised dogs have no dedicated cars of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no groundsman, leaving officers to maintain the kennels and facilities themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Port Elizabeth Flying Squad barely functioning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Cameron said the Port Elizabeth Flying Squad, once the backbone of rapid response in the metro, is now barely functioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have no high-performance vehicle available. They had one BMW before the oversight visit, but it broke down soon after they received it,\u201d Cameron said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unit currently has 56 operational members who need to share the one single-cab bakkie to serve residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years ago, this Flying Squad deployed between 15 and 20 vehicles per shift. \u201cThey now only have one vehicle for every shift,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are not the only problems. Firearm training occurs only once every five years, and the Accident Response Team lacks proper safety gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameron said the result is that Nelson Mandela Bay basically does not have a rapid response police unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a region where abalone poaching is getting worse and turning violent. It goes hand-in-hand with organised crime and gang violence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statistics revealed the problem. Despite the serious crime problem in the region, the Flying Squad had only processed three incidents over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, while the city\u2019s residents have grown and crime has become a bigger problem, the Flying Squad\u2019s capacity had declined significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe criminals in Nelson Mandela Bay know this and do whatever they like whenever they like,\u201d Cameron said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oversight visit by Cameron and his team<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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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\u202fmillion residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":842991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1329,24094,20678,24096,7541,24095,24093],"class_list":["post-842985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-da","tag-flying-squad","tag-ian-cameron","tag-k9-unit","tag-nelson-mandela-bay","tag-provincial-anti-gang-unit-agu","tag-sa-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842985"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843003,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842985\/revisions\/843003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}