Rural and school safety, drug peddling and improved service delivery formed part of agenda
The Ministry of Police takes each and every murder very seriously and considers rural safety one of its priorities. It also undertakes search and seizures to schools as part of its broader approach in dealing with drug-peddling and dangerous weapons in schools.
These were amongst various issues articulated by the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa during a Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster briefing to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) in Parliament today. The Minister added that he conducts regular and random visits to police stations across the country, in order to get first-hand account of the kind of service police members provide to society.
Asked whether the Ministry has a systematic national programme to deal with search and seizures at schools around the country and whether this random approach is not leading to the traumatisation of learners, Minister Mthethwa confirmed that at a national level, the South African Police Service (SAPS) issued guidelines for schools-based crime prevention. “We work closely with the Department of Basic Education to build and ensure collaboration, at local level, between police stations and schools in their areas, in the interest of school safety. This approach addresses school safety by dealing with both prevention programmes and ensuring appropriate responses to safety concerns.”
He said search and seizures are undertaken as part of this broader approach and are done in co-operation with the school management, School Governing Body or the Safe School Committee as one of the possible responses to concerns about drugs or dangerous weapons in a school.
“Part of our school safety approach, is to also build a positive relationship between the learners and the SAPS, to ensure that they trust the SAPS and report crime and share their safety concerns. It is, therefore, important that we keep that objective in mind when dealing with law enforcement duties like search and seizures, whilst, at the same time, instilling confidence with decisive and professional action when crimes are committed,” he added.
Minister Mthethwa briefed MPs that his ministry takes each and every murder very seriously and considers rural safety one of its priorities. A comprehensive Rural Safety Strategy, to enhance safety and security levels, accessibility to policing and service delivery to the rural community, was developed last year and is in process of being rolled out to provincial levels. A Rural Safety Priority Committee, dealing with Rural Safety, is functioning at national level, and has representation from all role players in the rural and farming community, including the SAPS, Farm Workers Unions, Organised Agriculture, including AGRI-SA and other government departments.
“Our aim is to ensure our rural safety strategy not only responds to the immediate safety and security needs of the rural community but also ensure an effective and sustainable policing approach. We would like to encourage all stakeholders to work together in a coordinated and integrated manner and engage at all levels in our planning and implementation of this strategy.”
Responding to a question relating to conducting unannounced visits to various police stations across the country, the Minister emphasized that this is something he does on an ongoing basis in order to obtain first-hand experience on police’ service delivery. In addition the Civilian Secretariat for Police has recently embarked on visits to police stations to assess service delivery issues and provides the Minister with constant updates on the outcome of these visits.
“Given the number of police stations in the country it is important that we try to visit as many stations as possible and this includes stations not visited by Parliament because it is often these stations that have not received attention,” he pointed out.
He said some of the critical things would also relate to understanding the challenges facing these police stations from a resource perspective, citing an example of taking of fingerprints of suspects. To this end all fully-fledged established police stations, excluding satellite police stations or contact points, should render a service with regard to the taking of fingerprints on a daily basis.
For enquiries, please contact:
Zweli Mnisi,
Spokesperson to the Minister of Police
Cell: 082 045 4024
