Programme director
Chairperson and members of the Portfolio Committee on Public Safety
Members of Mayoral Committees responsible for Public Safety
Head of the Department, Obakeng Mongale
Provincial Commissioner Lesetja Beetha
Executive and Senior Managers
Members of Area Cluster Boards
Members of Community Policing Forums
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
In his book titled Unity and Struggle, the great African revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral describes the spirit of self criticism as "the ability of each person to make specific analysis of his or her own work, to distinguish in it what is good from what is bad, to acknowledge our own errors and to discover the causes and the effects of these errors.
To make self criticism is not merely to say, 'Yes, I recognise my fault, my error and I ask for forgiveness,' while remaining ready to soon commit new faults, new errors. It is not pretending to be repentant of the evil one has done, while remaining convinced deep down that is the others who do not understand.
Still less is making self criticisms to make a ceremony so as to go on later with a clear conscious and carry on committing errors. Cabral further describes self criticism as an act of frankness, courage, comradeship, and awareness of our responsibilities, a proof of our will to accomplish and to accomplish properly to criticise oneself within oneself in order to serve better."
The call for a period of renewal made by President Jacob Zuma on the occasion of his inauguration as the fifth democratically elected President of the Republic of South Africa urged us to build a society that draws on the capabilities, energy and promise of all its people. He said that we should build a society that prizes excellence and rewards effort, a society that shuns laziness and incompetence. He said that everything we do must contribute in a direct and meaningful way to the improvement of the lives of our people.
This crucial consultative workshop as announced on the occasion of our Departmental Policy Statement and Budget Speech presentation on 10 July is intended to set a new tone for an intensified war against crime.
The marching orders and the call to action that we got yesterday from the Commander in chief in the war against the scourge of crime, President Zuma, have reminded us that all of us need to work hard to turn the image of our police stations.
All of our people irrespective of their social and economic status are yearning for effective, accountable and democratic policing because they are affected by the scourge of crime therefore our police stations should become centres of hope for all of our communities. We share the President Zuma's assertion that, "There is no police force that can cover every corner or anticipate every act of wrongdoing. Residents and citizens are better placed to pick up indications of criminal plans and to assess local moods, developments and attitudes."
We are also of the view that no police force or service can deal effectively with crime if it does not enjoy the support of the masses in the communities they police. In the end, it is not the size of the police service that will guarantee success in the fight against crime but the ability of the police to forge a viable relationship with the people to prevent and combat crime.
Our commitment of developing a crime free society, which is grounded on common democratic values and observance of human rights, still stands firm as an ongoing project. As a result of this commitment we dare not to waver or be shaken in our resolve to fight crime in all its facets.
Our farmers should feel that our police and their Community Policing Forums are working together with them in preventing farm attacks and reducing stock theft. Our police stations should also become centres of hope for poor and vulnerable farm workers and not just for their rich employers. I wish to emphasise that, in our democracy there is no place for differentiated level of service or preferential treatment for any particular grouping because according to our constitution, all citizens are equal.
Our CPF's should ensure that police at their area of jurisdiction protect, serve and treat complaints from all sections of our communities with the same urgency irrespective of the social and economic status of the complainant. In the same vain, we need to intensify our community mobilisation efforts to ensure that our structures are representative of various interest groups and are not only dominated by influential individuals within our communities.
The participation of the business sector, youth, women, churches, Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs), school governing bodies, community based organisations and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) should assist us attract a collective of volunteers with commitment, skill and a passion to serve our communities. Once elected, CPFs should not be self serving structures that are aloof from communities. They should remain accountable by holding community stakeholder meetings for consultation in determining policing priorities, presentation of reports on challenges and achievements.
CPFs and street committees as the eyes and ears of our communities ought to ensure that the resources, crime fighting equipment, including vehicles entrusted in the care of the police are used for the purposes for which they have been allocated and not misused. We not only have the responsibility to mobilise the community to report police vehicles that are parked at supermarkets, taverns, shebeens and other shopping or social areas during working hours but also to mobilise them to report suspected criminal activities in their communities.
You are very critical in our war against crime in winning every member of your communities on the side of the police and to ensure that there is no member of the police force who is also on the side of the criminals. The department and SAPS has identified the need to review the Protocol for Administrative and Project Funding with the intention of developing an all inclusive Funding Policy which will focus on all structures that are involved in social crime prevention initiatives.
We will henceforth provide funding to functional CPFs and other community crime prevention structures however, structures will be expected to submit Business Plans. CPFs whose business plans are not aligned to crime challenges and policing priorities will not be funded. Our assessment of the impact that our crime prevention strategies and effectiveness of our structures should as Amilcar Cabral advised be "an act of frankness, courage, comradeship, and awareness of our responsibilities, a proof of our will to accomplish and to accomplish properly to criticise oneself within oneself in order to serve better."
Over the centuries African communities used Letsema as a way of tackling problems collectively. We must continue with the efforts aimed at the retention of this progressive tradition which gives practical expression to the aspiration of human solidarity. We have committed ourselves to strengthen the structural design aimed at assisting to better realise our safety objectives and deepening and tightening the interface between communities and the police service.
This design includes the establishment of Community Safety Forums (CSF), street and or village committees. As per resolution of the ruling party's 52nd Polokwane resolution, the establishment, management and funding of the CSF are to be the responsibility of the department. The location of the School Safety and Tourism Safety programmes has also been allocated to the Department of Public Safety.
The CSFs will have a critical and significant role to play in the monitoring and functional coordination of the criminal justice system at the local or municipal level. The establishment of street and village committees will assist in taking crime combating and crime prevention to every corner of our province. Moral Regeneration is one of the vehicles to reduce crime therefore we need to deepen the practice of participatory democracy by establishing vibrant and dynamic partnerships and deepen our interface with churches, faith based organisations, business, labour, non-government organisations, the private security industry, traditional leaders, the youth and all stakeholders.
Our youth as young lions represent the future and have the energy that we need to tap into to intensify the war against crime in order to uproot criminals from our schools, our streets and our communities in order to remake the world for peaceful and safer communities.
Law enforcement as part of fighting crime and its causes cannot succeed if the social, economic, ideological and cultural conditions continue to spawn criminality. The living environment must itself be less conducive to crime therefore we need to work closer with our municipalities in order to expand the crime prevention through environmental design strategy project.
Intensifying Letsema as a sustainable project will harness all of our people's creative potential to deepen the culture of civic responsibility and human solidarity in order to change this situation. As we have said during the Departmental Policy Statement and Budget Speech, we cannot afford to have dysfunctional structures in any of our areas therefore we'll intensify our capacity building programme to ensure that structures are viable.
The department in cooperation with SAPS will also monitor the processes towards establishing the new Provincial Community Police Board after the dissolution of the previous board on the 22 September 2009.We expect CPFs to participate in the nomination and election of the new structure through their respective Cluster Boards. The mobilisation of communities towards the 2010 FIFA World Cup should include mobilisation of youth as volunteers in projects designed with an approach that targets criminal activities focusing on tourists.
The strategy on volunteers is being developed at national level and is expected to provide a guideline on issues pertaining to among others stipends for the youth volunteers. The success of government's endeavour in winning war against criminals depends squarely upon the shoulders of our dedicated community policing forums, the general public and forged partnerships between government and businesses and faith based organisations.
The community is the most important hub of information on crime. More often than not community members are key people with vital information which leads to easy traces and arrest of the suspect or culprit. Therefore the involvement of the general public is vital in the fight against crime in that it establishes a platform of social contract between the law enforcement officers and the community at large. With the collaboration of these bodies the police officers will always be in the right stead to act proactively before crime happens. This will enhance a free flow of information between the police and community on matter affecting them.
In conclusion I want to commend all community policing forums present here for the sterling job they are doing in their respective communities despite the challenges they face on a daily basis. Without your hearty dedication and selfless contribution in the fight against crime government would not make it.
I wish you a fruitful workshop which I believe will yield positive outcomes for the safety and security of our citizenry.
Ke a leboga.
