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I just picked up this piece of news and I had to say something on the matter as I find the flagrant waste of money disturbing.

So apparently the South African Police Service has just taken delivery of, wait for it, a 150 million rand Cessna plane. The reason for this is, and I quote, “to ensure that senior police and the task force can be deployed in the wink of an eye.” Let me be the first to say that this is the biggest waste of money I’ve ever heard of in my entire life. Issue number one: when have the police ever needed to be deployed on such short notice that they could not drive or fly on public transport methods? Secondly the plane was bought to, and I quote yet again, “replace the police’s “elderly” Beechcraft, which is already 38 years old”. So they bought a new plane even though they already had a private plane. I’m sorry, it takes 15 hours to DRIVE from Johannesburg to Cape Town and two hours by commercial jet. How long could the old plane have taken; 5 hours maximum?

This is a ridiculous waste of money and screams of corruption. The police chiefs clearly want a jet they can use to shuttle their drug money and mistresses around. Let’s do some math here quickly: if we assume a flight on a local carrier costs R2000 return (due to the fact that the flight would be booked last minute assuming a need for speed) then they SAPS could have afforded SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND return trips roughly anywhere in the country. Now I understand that flights are often booked or they might need to go to remote locations but they had a plane already! Surely they didn’t need to buy a new jet? I mean how often can they use it?

Another financial issue to consider is with R150 million how many new police could be trained and positioned to fight crime? It seems the heads of every government institution are only interested in self promotion and stupidity.

As a closing note take a look at the Cessna and tell me how relevant it is for the Police to own a jet as nice as this one.