By Luvuyo Mjekula
The Department of Employment and Labour has confirmed that it closed the Makhanda police station in Beaufort Street for a day due to several contraventions including compliance failures, employees working under hazardous conditions and lack of adequate water supply.
Following complaints by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), an inspection was conducted on Wednesday, 10 September at 11am and several contraventions were identified.
These included the absence of a valid certificate of compliance for electrical installations, inadequate ventilation in the radio room, poor housekeeping in work areas, lack of adequate supply of drinking water and failure to conduct a risk assessment.
“The Department confirms that two Prohibition Notices were issued at Makhanda Police Station on 10 September 2025. These were served due to: lack of provision of drinking water for employees and use in ablution facilities, and employees in the Community Service Centre working under hazardous conditions in a dilapidated building.
“The station was closed at 2pm on 10 September 2025,” said the department’s spokesperson, Cebisa Siyobi.
However, she said following immediate remedial action by the Saps, the Prohibition Notice was lifted at 2pm on Thursday, 11 September 2025.
When Grocott’s Mail visited the station on Wednesday and Thursday, the charge office was open despite skeleton staff.
However, in a statement from Popcru provincial secretary Xolani Prusente on Wednesdsay, the union boldly stated it had managed to “force” the station’s closure. It said more shutdowns would follow.
“Popcru in the Eastern Cape has once again been forced to act where the South African Police Service has failed. Today, we closed the Grahamstown (Makhanda) Police Station after it became abundantly clear that our members could no longer be subjected to the indignity, neglect, and outright danger of working in a half-abandoned, crumbling building. Renovations that were meant to restore this station began as far back as 2021.”
The union said the appointed contractor “disgracefully abandoned” the project midway through 2024, leaving behind a skeleton structure where doors and windows remain open, where there is no running water, and where members are expected to function without ablution facilities.
“This has turned what is supposed to be a centre of service into a health hazard, exposing workers to disease and stripping them of the most basic workplace rights.”
Prusente said this was not just an unfortunate lapse. “It is a reflection of the wider decay and indifference that has come to define Saps infrastructure in our province. Instead of taking responsibility, Saps in Makhanda has the audacity to direct our union to their head office, as though the suffering of workers is a bureaucratic inconvenience.
“We are not surprised, but we are deeply angered, because this arrogance confirms what we have long known: Saps management has no plan, no urgency, and no shame when it comes to protecting its own workers.”
The union said the crisis stretches far beyond Makhanda.
The Department of Employment and Labour had condemned the police station building in Beacon Bay in East London. Nothing was done to rehabilitate the building, the union said. “Instead, our members and the community are forced to operate out of a container structure that compromises health and safety on every front. This is what Saps calls a workplace — a glorified tin shack that bakes in the sun, floods in the rain, and endangers both workers and the public who seek assistance there.”
In Ngqamakwe, the union said renovations started more than a decade ago, in 2014, but a revolving door of contractors abandoned the project without consequence.
“By 2016, our members were dumped into prefabricated structures to serve as CSCs and offices, a shameful substitute for a functioning police station. It is in front of this very “station” that one of our members was recently shot dead, highlighting in the most tragic way the dangers of working under such conditions. These are not accidents — they are the predictable results of years of neglect, corruption, and indifference to the lives of police officers.”
The union vowed not to allow the situation to continue.
“We have taken the bold step of shutting down Makhanda, and we declare today that this is only the beginning. We will embark on a rolling program of shutdowns across the Eastern Cape, targeting every police station that endangers the lives of workers and the public.
“If Saps management and government refuse to prioritise the safety and dignity of police officers, then we will use our collective power to force their hand. No worker must ever be treated as expendable, and no community should be served from buildings that are themselves death traps.”
The union said it demands justice, dignity and survival.
“Our demand is simple: safe, functional, and dignified workplaces for all our members across this province. Until that is realised, Popcru will escalate, station by station, until those in power finally wake up to their responsibilities.”
