Pretoria – Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) pounced on three municipal officials and confiscated the official vehicles being used for personal business.
EMPD spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel Kelebogile Thepa said the three municipal vehicles were seized at a high school in Benoni where the city’s officials were dropping children.
“On Tuesday 23 May, 2023, at about 6am, members of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department’s Security and Loss Control Unit impounded three municipal vehicles following misuse by City of Ekurhuleni council employees, in the Benoni area,” Thepa said.
“On receiving a tip-off from a reliable source about City of Ekurhuleni employees using council vehicles to drop off their children at school, members swiftly acted on the information received and were led to a high school in Benoni where the law enforcers discovered three vehicles, namely a marked BMW belonging to the EMPD, a marked Ford Ranger belonging to the Disaster & Emergency Management Services Department (Dems) and an unmarked white Ford Ranger belonging to the Parks Department, inside the school parking lot.”
She said the three vehicles were confiscated from the drivers, and internal investigations will follow.
“The EMPD would like to reiterate that those that make use of council resources, that are meant to service the public at large, should refrain from such, as these resources are for the purpose of service delivery,” Thepa said.
Last year, SAPS management in Gauteng condemned “in the strongest possible terms” an incident in which a sergeant based at the Alexandra police station was found intoxicated, inside a marked state vehicle in Limpopo.
The drunk police officer had a woman with him in the car when he was found on a Sunday in July.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that the member utilised the station’s vehicle without authority to travel to another province. The 36-year-old sergeant was arrested at Masemola in Limpopo,” the SAPS in Gauteng said.
“A case of using a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent as well as a departmental case have been opened against the member for further investigations. No member of the service will be allowed to misuse or abuse state resources which are meant to serve the public.”
The SAPS in Gauteng appealed to community members to report misuse of police vehicles and misconduct by police officials.
IOL