Head of Department, Mr Obakeng Mongale
Executive managers
Senior managers
Middle managers
Programme managers
Ladies and gentlemen
The African genius and one of the extraordinary poets of our time, Ben Okri recently challenged humanity to join hands to a new social compact; it is almost as if he was echoing President Jacob Zuma’s call for a period of renewal. The extract from his poem Mental Fight, depicts the possibilities for a new South African national identity as follows:
You can’t remake the world
Without remaking yourself
We could use the new era
To clean our eyes,
To see the world differently
To see ourselves more clearly
Only free people can make a free world
Infect the world with your light
Help fulfil the golden prophecies
Press forward the human genius
Our future is greater than our past
We are better than that
We are greater than our despair
The negative aspects of humanity
Are not the most real and authentic
The most authentic thing about us
Is our capacity to create, to overcome
To endure, to transform, to love,
And to be greater than our suffering
We are best defined by the mystery
That we are still here, and can still rise
Upwards, still create better civilisations
That we can face our raw realities,
And that we will survive
The greater despair
That the greater future might bring.
Ben Okri, in the same poem, raises questions that each one of us need to think about. He asks; “will you be at the harvest, among the gatherers of new fruits?” I guess if the answer is yes, he argues that: “then you must begin today to remake your mental and spiritual world and join the warriors and celebrants of freedom, realisers of great dreams”. He says that his optimism, though at times dwindles, remains because we have “capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering”.
The call for a period of renewal made by President Zuma on the occasion of his inauguration as the fifth democratically elected President of the Republic of South Africa urged us as South Africans and as more importantly as public servants to hold ourselves to the highest standards of service, probity and integrity. The President said that together we must 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.
Our Premier, Mme Maureen Modiselle has delegated the provincial functions as outlined in Section 206(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996 to the Department of Public Safety as follows:
* to monitor police conduct
* to oversee the effectiveness and efficiency of the police service, including receiving reports on the police service
* to promote good relations between the police and the community
* to assess the effectiveness of visible policing and
* to liaise with the Cabinet member responsible for policing with respect to crime and policing in the province.
We are also empowered by the South African Police Service Act 68 of 1995 to establish a provincial secretariat in order to:
* perform functions necessary or expedient to ensure civilian oversight
* promote democratic accountability and transparency in South African Police Services (SAPS)
* monitor the implementation of national policy
* conduct research into any policing matter as instructed by the Member of Executive Council and
* evaluate the functioning of the police service.
In addition to the above responsibilities, provincial governments have been entrusted with overseeing the establishment of municipal police services, which also means that oversight must be extended to this level. In order to ensure that police officers at this level also respect the principles of our democracy provision has been within the legislation for the establishment of civilian oversight committees in order to promote accountability and transparency in the municipal police service.
It is our belief that the establishment of oversight agencies has to assist government to deal with inefficiencies and all allegations of misconduct against any member of the police agencies. Our efforts must result in achieving as well as enhancing the:
* Efforts by the government in restoring public and business confidence in that the question of police involvement in corruption and criminal activity is being addressed
* Development of a culture of respect for the law, honesty, integrity and transparency within the institution of policing, thereby promoting mutual trust and credibility between police and civil society
* Development of a human rights culture within the police service and
* Ensure that the police service is working to make good community and race relations a core function of policing.
Programme director, civilian oversight is not viewed as interference but a vehicle to enhance the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public in line with democratic principles. For this exercise to be effective; is it important to have targeted strategies because different contexts may demand and present opportunities for different kinds of civilian oversight.
However, in developing the role of civilian oversight of police, it is important to look beyond simply reactive approaches. Successful oversight also involves being proactive and this includes analysis of problems, identifying causes of problems, and proposing solutions. We must ensure that oversight goes beyond misconduct issues into broader police policy.
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 therefore we have to engage our counter parts in the two departments to ensure that these programmes are transferred with their budgets.
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.
We therefore need to move with speed to re-launch dysfunctional Community Policing Forums. The launch and escalation of Operation Washa Tsotsi throughout the province should also strengthen the social contract against crime.
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 (NGOs), 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. The implementation of traffic law enforcement, pedestrian management plan and road safety awareness campaigns to reduce accidents on our roads also require that we strengthen coordination and create vibrant and dynamic partnerships with and work closer with municipalities, the business sector, youth organisations, faith based organisations, churches, NGOs within our communities to assist us reduce road carnages and safe lives on our roads.
Our traffic business plan should ensure that we sustain continuous reduction of most offences which contribute towards high fatal and serious accidents. During the departmental policy statement and budget speech, we assured the people of our province that we’ll put in place higher level of law enforcement and road safety activities as we advance towards 2010 to realise a decrease in the number of fatal crashes occurring on our public roads by five percent.
I should emphasise that for this target for next year’s Easter to be met and even surpassed, we have to improve and tightly manage our planning processes.
As a new department, we need to hold ourselves to the highest standards of service, probity and integrity. We need to prize excellence and rewards effort and shuns laziness, incompetence and corruption.
I am confident that this strategic retreat will assist us defining who we are, where we are going and how we are going to get there. It will also assist us in shaping our programmes to improve the lives of our people because all of our programmes and activities should be more about them and less about ourselves.
Ke a leboga.
Issued by: Department of Public Safety, North West Provincial Government
13 August 2009
Source: Department of Public Safety, North West Provincial Government
(http://www.nwpg.gov.za/public_safety/PSdefault.html)
