Despite spending more than half a billion rand on training and equipment for public order police (POP) just months before the July unrest, the division remains under-resourced and unprepared.

Last week POP was exposed in an expert panel report into the July civil unrest, which found the division didn’t have the personnel or resources to carry out its work successfully.

The panel found there was just one water cannon per province for POP, and that KZN had to call for assistance from another provinces to use theirs. Police also ran out of rubber bullets and teargas canisters...