SAPS Gauteng Provincial Commissioner, Lt Gen Mzwandile Petros
All SAPS Gauteng Deputy Provincial Commissioners and Management present
Gauteng Provincial Board Chairperson, Mr Andy Mashaile
Representatives from Business, Civic structures and Youth formations present
Community of Tsakane and surrounding areas
Distinguished Guests
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen
We are pleased and humbled as the police leadership and management, to engage with you as the community of Tsakane. This engagement is not a coincidence as it is in line with our community-participation philosophy aimed at strengthening partnerships and working-together between police and society.
As the current government administration under the leadership of President Jacob Zuma, we have set ourselves five key priorities to accelerate service delivery; key amongst them is the reduction of crime. Amongst our priorities in addressing crime, we took a decision to new build police stations, particularly in areas where for whatever reason had been neglected in the past.
We further emphasised our seriousness in fighting crime by declaring 2012: the Year of the Detective precisely to emphasise the importance of better-trained police officers, especially our detectives. We want a paradigm shift where focus is not only on arresting those who commit crime, but essentially to ensure that they are heavily punished. We can achieve the latter if training is on-going, relevant and monitored.
Indeed acts of criminality including proliferation of firearms, rapes of women, children and the elderly, house robberies, hijackings and other forms of crimes; stand in direct opposite of a safe and secure society. That is why we continuously emphasise that unless society and police forge this strong working-together, criminals will have an advantage. We cannot allow that to happen.
Today, we are here to convey a message that the ANC-led government made a promise to you as citizens; that the ANC-led government has fulfilled its promises. The official handover of Tsakane Police Station to you as members of the community, marks an important development in our course towards a sustainable and safe environment. The building is not a property of the Minister of Police or the National Commissioner of Police; it is your property as residents of Tsakane. It is in your hands.
As we travel around the country, handing over police stations to residents, one of the fundamental shifts we hope to address is the issue of police stations demarcations, which in the past has been a hindrance. To demonstrate this point, members of society would go to a particular police station to report crime, upon arrival they would be informed that they do not fall within that geographical area, as such need to report elsewhere.
Such administrative bottlenecks and misunderstanding have not only created frustrations to society but at times enabled some of the criminals to get away with murder (literally at times). We are addressing this challenge and that is why we have now begun a review process of the White Paper on Safety and Security.
The handing over of the Tsakane Police Station appropriately coincides with government’s current national campaign of the 16 Days of Activism campaign to fight violence against women and children. Through this campaign, particularly as the police, we want to reiterate and commit ourselves to work harder and smarter to stop all forms of abuse of women, children and the elderly.
Whilst the campaign has recorded important progress over the last 12 years, however the levels of physical, emotional and sexual abuse experienced by women and children still remain unacceptably high. We call on all sectors of society to condemn any form of violence against women, children and the elderly.
The 16 Days of Activism campaign allows us to recommit our efforts to ensure safer communities in which women and children are free to live without fear. We will continue to improve access to criminal justice services to communities to ensure victims are treated with respect and that perpetrators are convicted. Furthermore, government is committed to improving the socio-economic conditions of women, children and elderly to reduce their susceptibility to abuse.
Any form of violence against women and children is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. As the Minister, two years ago I reintroduced the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Units to ensure dedicated investigators and other resources are assigned to cases where women and children are affected by violence.
Since the reintroduction and current process of capacitating these units, we have recorded significant progress. Severe sentences that are being imposed on those convicted of these forms of abuse and violence to perpetrators. But as we have always highlighted these forms of crime remain a big challenge for police to crack, mainly because they happen amongst acquaintances, relatives and in most cases ‘in the bedroom.’
We therefore need to ensure that Tsakane Police Station is capacitated to deal with such crimes, by providing the necessary support to women, children and the elderly impacted by violence. To the station commander and your team, you must continually aim to create a climate which allows victims of violence and abuse to come forward and report such crimes.
In dealing with these crimes we cannot resolve them alone, but need an integrated approach. This is where our Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster approach becomes crucial. Our services and facilities to victims such as health care provision, counselling services, shelters and legal support have been strengthened.
We have established various Thuthuzela Centres around the country that provide an integrated response of care and support to the victims of violent sexual acts against women and children. In communities where the incidences of rape are particularly high, our Thuthuzela Centres are found in public hospitals and linked to the sexual offences courts. Our specialised Sexual Offences Courts are staffed by committed prosecutors, social workers, investigating officers, magistrates, health professionals and police.
Today’s occasion is also significant in that we are handing over this police station during the ‘Operation Duty Calls’ National Festive Season Crime-Fighting campaign which we launched in Jane Furse last month. At the time when we announced our plans, perhaps some of these criminals took our warnings as paying lip services, well, on this occasion we want to reiterate that we shall leave no stone unturned in ensuring the safety of citizens.
Our crime fighting operations are in full swing and we have seen, particularly in this province Gauteng how police managed to thwart some of the armed gangs who attempted to rob businesses. We commend our officers for a job well done.
Today, we are making a clarion call to the residents of Tsakane to partner with the police in fighting the scourge of crime. Our approach and operations are focused around aggravated robberies, including house and business robberies, cash-in-transit, as well as ATM bombings. We also focused on social crime-prevention operations dealing with contact crimes like murder, rape and crimes against women, children and the elderly.
There is also a concerted focus on alcohol and drug abuse during this period. The drug trade and its associated problems continue to grow in most parts of the world, primarily because global abuse and accessibility of drugs has become increasingly complex, as trafficking routes have become shorter, more diverse and more easily traversed.
As government we remain confident that our communities will persist in building and enduring national partnerships further to change our society for the working together. We shall spare neither strength nor courage until crime has been significantly reduced in our society. We should unite in our determination that tomorrow and the day after; our women, senior citizens and children, will walk the streets without fear or harm.
As the residents, we encourage you to monitor the performance of the police officers at this police station. When we speak of monitoring, we do not imply you must judge them unfairly. Where they excel, congratulate them. Where they fail, encourage them to improve. This is the kind of partnership we expect, a partnership is based on honesty and integrity and not narrow and selfish grandstanding.
As police leadership, we have been consistent in our expectation from our police officers. We expect nothing but excellence from them. We must ensure that we are able to recruit the right kind of people, continuously train them into the kind of police officer we want to see. We remain confident that police at this station will make us proud.
Together, We Can Do More To Defeat Crime in Tsakane.
I thank you.
