The State has been paying more than R50 000 a month for a senior cop to stay at a larney hotel.
This was revealed by Action Society who slammed it as “wasteful expenditure” and who wants Major General Sizakhele William Dyantyi, the commander of the recently formed West Coast police district, to be sacked.
The District Commissioner has been staying at the three-star Saldanha Hotel for 17 months and to date the government has spent almost R1 million for the accommodation.
The Director of Action Society, Ian Cameron, says: “The hotel cost between R50 000 and R57 000 per month. The taxpayers’ money is being well spent while he lives in luxury for the last 17 months, that’s almost R1 million that has been spent on this general’s accommodation, while his own members at police stations don’t always have toilet paper to use when they go to the bathroom, when they don’t have paper to write on, where photocopy machines don’t work and where vehicles aren’t always roadworthy.
“During the time of budget cuts, the general and SAPS management in the Western Cape tells members on the ground that they’re not allowed to get overtime because they are facing serious budget cuts, yet it is completely, according to them, justifiable to live in luxury.”
In response, Brigadier Novela Potelwa said Dyantyi being on the West Coast was an internal operational decision “not taken lightly, and in the interest of service delivery”.
Potelwa says: “The detachment duty arrangement is subject to review from time to time, taking into account a number of operational variables.”
But Cameron questioned whether it was an operational decision to give the top cop an expensive sea view. He said SAPS management needs to stop doubting the intelligence of the public, “we’re not stupid. Major General Dyantyi, in my opinion you need to be sacked, you need to leave SAPS.”
mandilakhe.tshwete@inl.co.za