Generators to thwart ‘adverse effect’ of load-shedding on police work

The South African Police Service will be putting out a tender for the procurement of mobile back-up generators to avert disruptions during load shedding.

This emerged on Tuesday in a written reply in Parliament by police minister Nathi Nhleko to questions about the impact of load shedding on the SAPS‚ according to government’s news service.

He conceded that outages had “an adverse effect on service delivery – from affecting the registration of case dockets to a huge security risk posed to detainees in holding cells”.

The generators are “to be distributed by the provinces as and where the need arises”‚ said Nhleko‚ and the department of public works “has been requested to register projects for the provisioning of generators at the non-devolved police stations”.

Nhleko vowed that “all devolved police stations without generators would be provided with a generator by the end of the current financial year”.

Nhleko also that police were also looking at alternative ways of generating electricity‚ and named “five devolved police stations in the Eastern Cape (which) are fully dependent on solar power: Afsondering‚ Katkop‚ Lukholweni‚ Mbizeni and Zamuxolo police stations”.

He said that not all fully fledged police stations had generators: “Of the 1 140 police stations‚ 197 do not have generators. Of the 197 police stations‚ 184 police stations are non-devolved police stations‚ which is the responsibility of [public works] and 13 are devolved‚ which is SAPS’ responsibility.”