OFM News has been reliably informed by a well-placed source that there are multiple issues plaguing the station that hinders servicing the community sufficiently. For one, at present 30 investigating officers at the police station are forced to share two vehicles to conduct investigations into crime in the area. To bring the situation into context, the anonymous source estimates that the investigators at Kagisanong receive an estimated 20 dockets daily that they must probe. On a Monday, this number can go up to 50 dockets that each need to be attended to. Furthermore, the four-member crime prevention unit is sharing one car. The OFM News team paid a visit to the police station and the nearby detective offices and observed other notable issues plaguing the police station.

These include an absence of sanitisers at the Kagisanong detective offices specifically, not the general offices. It is alleged that sanitizers are still being sought. This observation was made as Bloemfontein sees an increasing number of Covid-19 cases and the country is said to be on the cusp of a third wave. In addition to not having any sanitizers, the office grounds were littered with refuse material and appeared to have not been looked after for some time. The well-placed source alleges the station cannot afford to hire a groundsman to attend to the issue. The last groundsman retired years ago and a new one has not been hired since. The OFM News team also observed that tons of police dockets were being stored in a small kitchen cabinet, raising concern over the lack of an adequate filing system.

Free State police spokesperson, Motantsi Makhele, refutes some of the allegations made by the source. He says it can’t be that 30 investigators are sharing two vehicles because according to the police service’s standardised ratio at least two to three detectives must share one vehicle. Makhele acknowledges that from time to time state vehicles that are broken down need to go in for service and as a result this standardised ratio isn’t always maintained. He says presently out of 11 vehicles, only four are running, not two as alleged by the source.

Regarding the physical detective building Makhele says Kagisanong is awaiting the building of a new police station and that the storing of the dockets in the “steel kitchen cabinets” is nothing more than a temporary measure.

Currently there is a number of police vans, that need fixing, kept at varying police stations. This is reportedly due to a backlog at the state garage.

OFM News/Lucky Nkuyane and Olebogeng Motse