It seems the Gauteng Province in South Africa’s ambitious drive to integrate drone technology into policing and community safety operations has hit a snag, following revelations that the province succeeded in getting only one drone off the ground, from the 33 that were purchased last year.
This has been largely because the department charged with the responsibility to use the drones to fight crimes in the province and keep communities safe has so far struggled to secure a Remote Operator’s Certificate from the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA).
In his state of the province speech in February 2023, Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi promised that drones and other technological accessories would be integrated to help crime fighting efforts in the province.
“We are increasing our budget of fighting crime from R750million to multi-billion in the next three years,” said Lesufi at the time.
“To ensure that our police are not sacrificial lambs in the battles with criminals (22 police officers were killed while on duty between July and September last year), we are at an advanced stage to procure 180 state of the art drones that will infiltrate areas that are difficult to patrol and police.
“These drones are equipped with technology that can capture the direction of a bullet and where they come from.”
To be fair to him, the provincial governor made good on his promise at least on the drone front, with the province purchasing a fleet of 33 DJI M350 in the 2023/2024 financial year, that sadly look like they have remained in their original boxes since they were added to the province’s public safety inventory.
Responding to questions from the provincial parliamentary portfolio committee on community safety, the Gauteng Department of Community Safety head of department Nonsikelelo Sisulu admitted that they have not done justice to the drones they procured at a cost of R10,8million (about $582,000).
“The Department of Community Safety (DCS) procured thirty-three drones in the 2023/24 financial year,” Sisulu said in her written response to the questions.
“One drone was registered with the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA).”
The head of department added that about ten drones did work under the aegis of an appointed drone services provider’s ROC, before that contract expired in May last year.
It was not renewed, and the department’s own application is still pending.
And – absence of concrete evidence of people not doing their jobs well – we have to cut the department some slack, because it is not easy to obtain an ROC from the aviation regulator. Since the applications were opened around 2015, only 106 ROCs have been issued to date and of these, only two have been awarded to municipalities and provincial governments.
There was a time when RC took the better part of three years to process; and that was through not fault of the applicant’s making.
In a world where drone technology for policing and public safety operations has proven its importance to many a community safety project the world over, it is our hope that the department is doing all it can to acquire its certificate.
Because it is also true that, in every ROC application process, the burden to satisfy the raft of requirements as dictated by the regulator falls upon the applicant. We do not know how eager the Department of Community Safety in Gauteng is to meet these requirements; and we do not know how fast they are marking that list of things to do.
Which is why we hope they are going at it as fast they possible.
Among many others, drone applications in the safety space have since been upgraded to first responder status, where they can be deployed to a developing emergency in advance, so they can assess the best way human personnel attending the scene can approach it.
Some political players in the province are however, not so accommodating.
The Democratic Alliance, for instance, has released a statement decrying the status quo for the Gauteng drones, saying this was a waste of money for a project that has done nothing to improve safety in the province.
“The safety and security of Gauteng residents is being compromised, as the Department of Community Safety revealed in a written response to the Portfolio Committee on Community Safety that only one out of 33 available drones were registered for use over the course of an entire year, the DA said.
“The failure to register these drones, let alone use them, is unacceptable. It shows that the Gauteng government’s significant investment in advanced technology has not yielded much return for Gauteng residents.
“It is also concerning that R10.8 million for the procurement of drones has been flagged as irregular expenditure under assessment in the department’s 2023/24 Annual Report. This signals a total disregard for sound financial management to achieve targeted goals for fighting crime.
“The DA would have expected the same enthusiasm with which Premier Panyaza Lesufi announced the use of these drones to be replicated in their registration and use. However, they have been allowed to sit idle and gather dust when our people continue to fall victim to crime in their communities.”
As it waits for the certificate, the DCS has trained twenty-two drone operators and – at the time of this report – was in the process of appointing a service provider to offer experiential training on flying drones.
“The experiential ongoing training covers full scale operations which include pre-flight planning, post-flight, risk assessment, controlled airspace operations site allocation, flight documentation.”