Contingency plans are likely to be put in place at the Bonteheuwel Police Station on Wednesday to work around reported issues with the station’s telephone line. Residents have expressed concern that one of their most vital routes of communication with the police have been down for several weeks, hampering attempts to report criminal activity in the crime-ridden area.

VOC was alerted to the issue on Tuesday by community members, with the area’s CPF also noting difficulties in lodging telephonic reports to the station.

Bishop Lavis CPF chairperson, Graham Lindhorst said the faulty line was especially concerning because Bonteheuwel had a ‘satellite station’ and the line in question was the only telephonic connection to the area’s police.

Lindhorst himself has since written to the acting station commander to gauge how the police plan to address the matter.

“He has now promised to put a contingency plan in place from this morning hopefully, after the pressure from the community’s side,” he explained.

The acting station commander has also since reported the faulty line to Telkom, who have in turn promised to fix the problem as soon as possible.

In the interim, residents have been forced to physically visit the station to report incidents of criminal activity. This has proven problematic as not all residents have access to transport.

“That’s the unfortunate thing; nobody really took cognisance of that. Still up until last night and this morning it has been the same, but hopefully they will put a mobile phone in there,” he stated.

Lindhorst said he was also awaiting the response of the station as to why it had taken so long to find out about the fault, and for any contingency plans to be put in place.

“Surely somebody must have known quite a long time ago because OB (occurrence book) entries were made at the station, so whoever checked those OB entries must have known, and someone should have taken action long ago,” he declared, stressing that action need be taken against the official who failed to report the fault.

To contact Graham Lindhorst with any related complaints, phone 082 532 5099. VOC (Mubeen Banderker)