Simmering tensions between provincial police commissioner Arno Lamoer and Community Safety MEC Dan Plato has boiled over.
|||Cape Town - Simmering tensions between provincial police commissioner Arno Lamoer and Community Safety MEC Dan Plato boiled over on Wednesday when Plato released statistics showing that in some parts of the Western Cape there are more than 3 000 people for every police officer.
Plato said he obtained the statistics from Lamoer’s office, but when the Cape Times approached Lamoer for comment and told him this, Lamoer replied: “I never gave him anything. He’s lying.”
The police’s official website said the national police-to-population ratio was 1:303.
This varied from province to province and in the Western Cape it stood at 1:245.
But according to the statistics Plato revealed during a press conference yesterday, in Mitchells Plain the police-to-population ratio is 1:3 240.
This means a police officer in Mitchells Plain serves more than 13 times as many residents as the average.
Lamoer told the Cape Times he had never provided any population ratio statistics to Plato.
“I don’t know where he got it from,” he said.
Lamoer said officers were still looking at Census 2011 information and were in the process of compiling the police to population ratios.
According to Plato’s figures, Mitchells Plain topped 20 areas in the province where the number of residents exceeded the provincial target in terms of the police-to-population ratio.
Plato released the ratios for the 20 worst-affected stations out of the 149 in the province.
The statistics he provided showed that:
* After Mitchells Plain, Harare in Khayelitsha came in second with a police-to-population ratio of 1:1 703.
* In Nyanga, the murder capital of the province based on the latest official police statistics released in September, the ratio was 1:1 419.
* In Manenberg, which was experiencing a flare-up in gang violence, the ratio was 1:801.
Plato said the ratios had fallen to “disastrous levels”.
“The 20 police stations with the worst police-to-population ratios are, without fail, the stations which are notorious for high levels of crime.
“This leads me to believe that the poor number of operational police officers at these stations has a negative impact on the crime levels in these areas,” he said.
Plato said in April he had written to Lamoer’s office to request the police-to-population ratio for every police station in the province, and the reply he received was “most concerning”.
Plato’s spokesman, Greg Wagner, said a response from Lamoer’s office was received, dated May 7.
On May 13, Plato sent a letter to Lamoer asking, among other things, how police were addressing the matter, and he sent a second letter to Lamoer last month asking for a response. “It has been two months and I have not had a response from the SAPS,” Plato said.
He said the police would have to explain to Parliament how they would address the problem.
On Tuesday, Plato had met Lamoer for the weekly meeting in Plato’s office, but had not told Lamoer about Wednesday’s press conference, which was also attended by DA MPL Mark Wiley, chairman of the standing committee on community safety.
Last month, tensions between Lamoer and Plato flared up when Plato said police officers were failing to protect the public.
But on Wednesday, Plato denied there was any bad blood between them.
“People are of the opinion we fight every week. We have a good relationship,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Cape Times sent the provincial police the statistics Plato had provided. Police spokesman Andre Traut said: “This office has taken note of the released figures, however we will not be offering any comment in this regard.”
caryn.dolley@inl.co.za
Cape Times