‘Nobody answers’: Audit raises fresh concerns over SAPS response systems

---

Dialing into Darkness: How 571 Stations Vanished from the Map

Pick up your phone, punch in the official landline of your nearest South African Police Service (SAPS) station and, in more than half the country, you will meet nothing but endless ringing. During a ten-day sprint last year, the Democratic Alliance rang every published number - 1 025 in total - at least six times between seven in the morning and five at night. If no human or machine answered on the second attempt ninety minutes later, the line was declared dead. The final tally: 571 stations, 56 % of the total, never picked up.

Limpopo performed worst - only nine of its 87 stations could be reached. The Free State followed closely, its ageing copper arteries collapsing under dust, rodents and rolling black-outs. In towns such as Alldays, Modimolle and Odendaalsrus, the only audible response to a cry for help is a flat monotone that never graduates to a human voice.

Failures were not limited to pure silence. Numbers that screeched like a fax or delivered a polite “this number does not exist” counted as duds. Technicians noticed something odd: some switchboards signalled “ringing” on the network monitor yet callers heard nothing, suggesting the problem lies deeper - in corroded PABX cards rather than idle constables.

---

Far from the City Lights: Why Geography Still Decides Your Safety

Spread the results on a map and a blunt truth emerges. Sixty-three per cent of unreachable stations sit outside South Africa’s eight major metros. In Limpopo, fibre circuits piggy-back on copper pairs that dangle from poles and sleep in roadside cabinets with batteries no bigger than a DStv dish. When load-shedding arrives, those batteries die and the line goes dark.

Head south-west to Philippolis in the Free State and the picture is worse. The MDF (Main Distribution Frame) room doubles as a paper archive; damp cardboard files lean against 1980s-era grey cable bundles. Moisture has turned the Krone strips green; joins are wrapped in masking tape. Telkom closed 27 fault tickets as “resolved”, yet fresh patch cables lie coiled on the floor, unused, because no budget line exists for replacement stock.

By contrast, stations along Cape Town’s inner city ring answered 93 % of test calls. Their trick is pragmatic: the City’s fibre loop lets the handset behave like an IP-phone. When copper goes down, voice rides the gigabit network and callers still get through. The gap is therefore less about kilometres from a city tower than about which century your local station lives in.

---

Patchwork Solutions and VIP Numbers: Life after the Landline Dies

When the published line fails, citizens improvise. Investigators discovered that 41 % of “dead” stations still possess a single cellphone, usually the station commander’s. The number circulates on church WhatsApp groups or on a handwritten scrap taped above the till in the local spaza shop. In Mpumalanga one sergeant fielded 312 calls in a single week on his personal MTN line, sometimes at two in the morning, mostly from farm labourers reporting stolen cattle.

The arrangement is fragile. If the commander is testifying in court, driving through a dead spot or simply asleep, the thread snaps. Officers often buy their own data; the cheapest 1 GB prepaid bundle can cost more than a constable’s hourly wage once spaza-shop mark-up is added. Meanwhile the station’s fax machine may still work - because it shares the same copper pair but does not need a human ear.

---

The Money Maze: Why Airtime Never Reaches the Handset

SAPS signs a national RT46 contract that buys millions of voice minutes - but only for the 10111 emergency centres. Each station must fund its fixed-line airtime from sub-item 29.7, “telecommunications”. Parliamentary records show that in real terms this slice of the budget has shrunk 17 % since 2020. To top up, a station commander must log into the LOGIS portal and bid against hospitals and traffic departments for quarterly allocations. In rural Northern Cape one station lost its landline for four months because the only clerk who knew the password retired and nobody else had reliable internet to reset the profile.

---

The 10111 Bottleneck: Where Overflow Becomes a Digital Cliff

Inside the 10111 Emergency Communication Centre in Midrand the situation is equally bleak. Fifty-seven per cent of operator desks stood empty during peak evening shifts. The Automatic Call Distribution system can queue 1 200 calls but Treasury capped the licence at 800 actual voice channels. When the queue saturates, new callers are silently dropped before anyone can greet them.

Even if an operator answers, transferring the call to the nearest station can fail. In two recent Soweto hijacking cases the centre “tried Jabulani SAPS for twelve minutes but the line remained busy.” By the time an alternative unit was dispatched, the suspects had abandoned the car 800 metres from the station doors.

---

Gender-Based Violence and the One-Call Window

The GBV Command Centre hotline promises to push victims straight through to their closest police station. Between January and June 2023 the centre attempted 8 463 such transfers; 1 201 failed because the station landline was dead, engaged or simply unmanned. Data show these failures cluster in the same districts the DA audit labelled unreachable. For a woman hiding in a bathroom, the absence of that first ring is often the moment forensic opportunity disappears.

---

Graveyard beneath the Floorboards: When Copper Turns to Dust

Telkom’s ticket system may label a line “resolved”, yet inside Philippolis the MDF room tells a different story. Old cable pairs end in verdigris stubs; masking tape secures splices that wiggle loose when someone slams the adjoining archive door. In one documented case technicians rerouted calls through an exchange 47 kilometres away, creating a handshake delay that ageing PABX equipment interprets as a dropped trunk. To the caller, the result is the same: endless silence.

---

The Digital Leapfrog That Never Left the Ground

SAPS has ring-fenced R2.8 billion for the Integrated Command & Control System, promising LTE radios, body-cams and VoIP by 2026. Reality bites in KwaZulu-Natal pilot sites: the spectrum auction stalled, leaving officers on 3G where voice is circuit-switched and data collapses to GPRS during load-shedding. Officers can WhatsApp crime-scene photos, yet the 10111 centre cannot dial their new smartphones because the contract forgot to include SIP trunks to the old public-switched network. The shiny devices sit in chargers next to a Bakelite handset that hasn’t worked in months.

---

Private Networks Rising: VIP Protection for Those Who Can Pay

Where the state signal fades, private systems bloom. Limpopo’s Community Safety WhatsApp group numbers 2 400 farmers and lodge owners who share radio channels and armed-response vehicles. In Khayelitsha, Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading hands out panic buttons that connect over a mesh network independent of Telkom. These networks rescue lives, yet they also entrench inequality: rapid response for those with R450 a month; perpetual voicemail for everyone else.

---

Small Fixes, Global Echoes: What Works Elsewhere and at Home

New Zealand’s “Five-Ring Test” in 2019 discovered 38 % of rural posts unreachable during cyclone warnings. Their quick fix: wheel-in mobile towers with Starlink backhaul to create a VoIP bridge reachable by any smartphone app. Kenya’s border police rely on solar-powered GSM femtocells advertised on roadside murals. Closer to home, the Western Cape wrapped three flood-hit Clanwilliam stations in satellite-fed VoIP; domestic-violence response times fell from 42 minutes to 18. Each pilot cost R68 000 in gear plus R950 per month in bandwidth – pocket change against SAPS annual ICT spend.

---

Redefining Accountability: From Ring Tones to Dashboards

The Public Service Commission notes that station commanders have no KPI that tracks “percentage of answered landline calls.” Performance contracts reward roadblock fines and arrest statistics, not the humble act of picking up the phone. Some commanders simply switch the handset to a fax machine after hours to dodge overtime claims. Others forward everything to 10111, unaware the overflow queue already holds three hundred callers.

Civil society offers a ready antidote. OpenBylaws.org built a script that scrapes live data from Asterisk-based PABXs and pushes a green/red status to a public Telegram channel. In Port Elizabeth pilots the bot exposed a 62 % Monday-morning call-abandon rate; rescheduling one reservist clerk dropped the rate to 12 %. Rolling the script nationwide would cost under R5 million in licences and API feeds - cheaper than a single day of load-shedding losses.

---

Spectrum Debates and the Last Mile of Silence

While policy makers argue about high-end spectrum releases and billion-rand tenders, the everyday fact remains a cracked Bakelite handset dangling beside a curling duty roster. Until copper is replaced, batteries stay charged, KPIs include the word “answered”, and procurement actually reaches the handset, that phone will keep ringing unanswered. Its unanswered ring is a quiet indictment that echoes down the corridors of the South African state.

Why are so many South African police stations unreachable by phone?

Many South African police stations are unreachable due to a combination of factors including aging copper infrastructure, lack of maintenance, load-shedding impacting battery life for communication systems, budgetary constraints for telecommunications, and a lack of accountability for answering landline calls. This issue is particularly prevalent in rural areas, where 571 out of 1025 tested stations (56%) were found to be unreachable.

What are the main technical reasons for the phone line failures?

The failures stem from several technical issues. These include corroded PABX cards, often caused by moisture and neglect in MDF rooms, and old copper lines that are susceptible to damage from rodents and dust. Load-shedding also plays a significant role, as batteries for communication systems in rural areas are often inadequate or unmaintained, leading to lines going dark during power outages. Some lines even signal 'ringing' on the network but callers hear nothing, indicating deeper infrastructure problems.

How does geography influence the problem of unreachable police stations?

Geography significantly impacts the problem, with 63% of unreachable stations located outside South Africa's eight major metropolitan areas. Rural stations are more reliant on aging copper infrastructure that is vulnerable to environmental factors and load-shedding. In contrast, stations in cities like Cape Town, which utilize fibre optic networks and IP-phone technology, have much higher connectivity rates, demonstrating a stark digital divide.

What are the interim solutions people use when landlines fail?

When official landlines fail, citizens often improvise. Many 'dead' stations still have a single cellphone, usually belonging to the station commander, whose number circulates through community WhatsApp groups or local businesses. However, this arrangement is fragile as the officer might be unavailable, out of service range, or using personal funds for airtime and data, which is unsustainable and unreliable.

Why hasn't the budget allocated for telecommunications solved the issue?

Despite SAPS having a national contract for millions of voice minutes for 10111 emergency centers, individual stations must fund their fixed-line airtime from a shrinking telecommunications budget. Station commanders have to bid for quarterly allocations against other government departments, and administrative hurdles, such as retired clerks or lack of internet access to reset passwords, can cause prolonged service outages. Furthermore, a substantial budget for an Integrated Command & Control System (R2.8 billion) has been allocated, but its implementation has been hampered by issues like stalled spectrum auctions and a lack of integration with existing networks.

What are some potential solutions or best practices observed elsewhere?

International and local examples offer potential solutions. New Zealand used mobile towers with Starlink backhaul during emergencies. Kenya utilizes solar-powered GSM femtocells. Closer to home, the Western Cape successfully implemented satellite-fed VoIP in flood-hit stations, significantly reducing response times. These pilot projects demonstrate that relatively inexpensive technological upgrades, combined with accountability measures like KPIs for answered calls and public monitoring systems (such as the OpenBylaws.org script), could drastically improve connectivity and service delivery.