JOHANNESBURG. The South African Police Service’s Gauteng 10111 Centre was out of action on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the police said operators became aware that the line was not functioning at around midday when they tried to call out for a pizza and found no dial tone.
However he conceded that the lines may have been out of operation for several days before anybody picked up the fault.
Spokesperson, Wanton Shooter, acknowledged that there had been fewer calls than usual to the centre in the last couple of weeks.
“And by fewer calls, I mean none,” he said.
Shooter said it had taken a while to isolate the problem because a number of options were considered before we realised that the fault lay with Telkom.
“With hindsight we can see that the default position of most South Africans – blaming Telkom – should have been our first conclusion, but you can’t fault our people for seeking creative solutions.
“At first we thought we had won the war on crime and that there was nothing to report,” he said.
“Then we decided that maybe people were too scared to call us, in case we arrived and shot them.”
Shooter said speculation at the water cooler even saw some wild conspiracy theories being advanced. “One school of thought had it that the criminals were seeking to assume the moral high ground over the police.
“You know, if police kill more people than criminals, then suddenly it’s the gangsters that the public phone when they come across a roadblock or hear shots in the dark.,” he said.
Meanwhile a spokesperson for Telkom, Bugsy Malope, said technicians were working around the clock in a bid to get the line up and running. “And we’ll have the call-centre reconnected as soon as the bill is paid,” he said.
