Station commissioners
Cluster commanders
Community police forum members
Officials from the Department of Safety and Liaison
Members of the media
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Today is my first official visit to this new big and beautiful Mdantsane Presidential police station, which represents a shining success story and example of government’s efforts to change the face of the Mdantsane Township, which is the second largest in the country.
This visit forms part of our Safety and Security month (February) programme in the province, which is an initiative of government that seeks to mobilise and organise our various stakeholders, especially our people to unite against crime.
Its main purpose is to:
* Monitor police performance within the cluster
* Check challenges facing the police, especially with regard to resources
* Check the state of readiness for the 2010 FIFA World Cup operations, especially the public viewing area that will be at the Sisa Dukashe stadium during the tournament
* Look at the cluster’s progress in collecting firearms as part of the firearms amnesty period
* Monitor collaboration between the police and local communities.
Police performance
I am generally satisfied with the performance of the stations in this cluster such as Mdantsane, Vulindlela and Inyibiba. However, I believe that a lot still needs to be done to deal with contact crime, property related crimes, drug related crimes, drunken driving and shop lifting. We cannot afford to have the prevalence of these crimes if we still want more investors to come and invest in this township in order to create more decent jobs for our people.
Resources
We know that there has been a challenge of limited resources, but we are turning the corner as we have allocated R121 million to purchase 712 new vehicles for the police in this province. Already, 595 vehicles have been delivered. A total of 63 vehicles were ordered for this cluster alone and 36 of them have been delivered and we are handing them over today. We are going to continue to increase our pace of distribution of all the necessary resources in order to improve the South African Police Service (SAPS) performance and ultimately win back our streets from the hands of criminals.
Police and community collaboration
As the democratic government, we strongly believe in the collaboration between our law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve. In order to reduce the above mentioned criminal activities, there as an urgent need to:
* strengthen our community police forums (CPF)
* strengthen our community safety forums
* establish street communities.
Firearms amnesty
Vigorous engagement between the police and our local communities is required more than ever, especially in this period of the firearms amnesty, which was re-opened by the Minister of Police last month. One of the identified solutions to the above mentioned challenges, especially violent crime, is to use this Safety and Security month programme to encourage people to surrender both illegal and legal firearms in an effort to reduce the number of firearms in circulation.
We call upon all people who have knowledge of whereabouts of firearms and ammunition, those who inherited firearms and did not apply for a licence to support this initiative. Let us work together to raise awareness about this and communicate our themes: “Together we can do more against crime”, “Awulethe Umshini Wakho–Surrender your firearm”. A provincial task team has been established to lead this process and it comprises officials from the Department of Safety and Liaison, SAPS and Business Against Crime.
State of readiness for 2010 FIFA World Cup
The Sisa Dukashe stadium here has been identified as one of the public viewing areas during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This cluster has a clear safety plan for this venue and the police contingent will be reinforced by safety patrollers, who will be drawn from local CPF structures.
We have allocated 83 safety patrollers per district, who will receive training to be conducted by the Safety and Security Sector Education and Training Authority (SASSETA). The training will commence this month in various districts and all the recruits will be screened and deployed in the public viewing areas in Buffalo City, Makana, Matatiele, Cofimvaba, Lady Grey and Port St Johns.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate our call for support from everybody in this province, including traditional leaders, faith based organisations, business people, youth and women organisations, and media houses. Let us continue to work together to make this province a place to live, work and invest in.
I thank you
Issued by: Department of Transport, Safety and Liaison, Eastern Caper Provincial Government
4 February 2010
