The Cost of Underfunding the EMPD Is Measured in Lives and Crumbling Infrastructure

The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department (EMPD) stands on the frontline of public safety in South Africa’s fourth-largest metropolitan municipality. However, if we are serious about tackling crime, combating the drug trade, and restoring public confidence, we must ask a critical question:

Does the EMPD have the personnel, funding, and resources it needs to do the job effectively?

EMPD’s current staff complement stands at 3,022 officers. Of these, 2,018 are deployed to traffic law enforcement, 319 to support services, 223 to by-law enforcement, and only 462 to crime prevention. In a metro like Ekurhuleni, which faces some of the highest crime levels in Gauteng, 462 crime prevention officers cannot meet the demand.

The present allocation is misaligned with community safety needs and must be restructured to put more boots on the ground where crime is happening.

Traffic law enforcement plays an important role in road safety and contributes to municipal revenue through the recording of infringements. However, the pressing reality in Ekurhuleni is the need for greater capacity in crime prevention.

Should the municipality be unable to reduce the traffic law enforcement component, it should consider recruiting an additional 1,000 police officers. This would increase the crime prevention unit to 1,462 officers and enable a more effective response to the safety challenges facing our communities.

Another area of misalignment is the deployment of by-law enforcement officers. With only 223 officers allocated to this function, the unit is inadequately resourced to meet demand. By-law infringements in Ekurhuleni are at record levels because enforcement is not visible or consistent. Noncompliance has become normalised across the city. To restore order and ensure accountability, this unit must be capacitated with an additional 500 officers.

The numbers speak for themselves. Ekurhuleni has allocated less than R100 million to Community Safety, but more than R7 billion to contracted services. To the people of this city, that says safety is not the priority, tenders are. How can the city justify a R2 billion security tender while leaving EMPD, the very department mandated to protect our communities, starved of resources?

The continued underfunding of EMPD appears intentional, and it is costing lives. Look around Ekurhuleni, our infrastructure is crumbling from vandalism, drugs are destroying our youth, bylaws are ignored, and crime is escalating.

The solution is clear; the city must properly capacitate the department tasked with protecting our people. EMPD requires an operational budget of R700 million to allow proper staffing and tools of trade.

EMPD has 1,497 vehicles, but only 905 are on the road. That means 592 vehicles are sitting idle while communities wait longer for help and officers are sent to calls without the tools they need. We cannot claim to prioritise safety when more than a third of our fleet is out of action. The city must urgently repair and redeploy these vehicles so that officers can respond, patrol, and protect without being hamstrung by a lack of resources.

The city’s failure does not stop with broken vehicles. Our officers are also being sent into the field without basic dignity. Look at them uniforms are tattered, worn out, and embarrassing. We cannot expect residents to respect law enforcement, and we cannot expect criminals to fear it, when officers themselves do not look resourced.

This is a failure of leadership. The city must immediately provide proper, professional uniforms so that every EMPD member can serve with pride and be recognised as the authority they are.

Here’s what needs to happen to restore the dignity of the department:

• Establish a Narcotics Unit: Ekurhuleni sits at the centre of our country’s logistics network, and criminals know it. Drugs are moving through our townships, our schools, and our taxi ranks every single day. Yet EMPD does not have a dedicated, properly equipped narcotics unit with intelligence, forensics, and boots on the ground.
• Staffing: Our communities are under-policed, and our officers are overstretched. To change that, we must recruit an additional 1,500 EMPD officers immediately. This is how we put more boots on the ground and restore safety to every ward in Ekurhuleni.
• Funding: You cannot fight crime on a shoestring. We must increase the EMPD budget from R100 million to R700 million. This is the investment required to put vehicles on the road, officers in uniform, and real capacity in our communities.

Our people have not waited for government. They organised patrollers and CPFs to protect their own streets. Now government must meet them halfway. EMPD must professionalise this relationship by giving patrollers proper communication lines, basic training through the EMPD academy, and clear procedures for handing over to officers.

We cannot and should not outsource safety to volunteers. But we also cannot win this fight without them. Every precinct must include facilities where community safety structures can meet, debrief, and get real feedback from EMPD.

The people of Ekurhuleni know me for standing up against crime and taking on drug dealers, even with no state backing. But I reached a point where good intentions and limited resources were not enough. That is why I chose to enter politics, and why I joined ActionSA to bring that same fight inside government and use the resources of the state to protect our communities.

As Mayor, I will make Ekurhuleni hostile territory for criminals, drug dealers, and illegal operators.

The days of this city being a playground for lawlessness are over.

This November, Ekurhuleni must make a choice, continue with blind loyalty to those who left us unsafe, or vote for safety, dignity, and law and order in our city.

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