Premier Mxolisi Dukwana‘s address to the welcoming ceremony of new constables and an official launch of Operation Shanela by South African Police Service --- Free State Province, at Bobbiespark – SAPS sportsground.
Programme Director,
MEC for Community Safety Roads and Transport – Ms MJ Letsoha - Mathae, Free State Police Commissioner – Lt General - Baile Motswenyane,
Deputy Provincial Commissioner – Support Services - Major-General -- LM Singh,
Our Senior SAPS Management, Our Senior DPCI Management, Our Senior SSA Management,
Our Senior Justice & Correctional Service Management, Our Esteemed Constables;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Today, marks a great moment of pride and achievement by all these 800, newly trained constables, and the South African Police Service. The FS Provincial Government celebrates and congratulates you.
Without a doubt, this is the beginning of a long and exciting journey for you our new graduates; fresh from training, in the gruelling task to:
prevent, combat, investigate crime and maintain public order, protect and secure the inhabitants of South Africa and their property, and
Uphold and enforce the law without fear, favour or prejudice.
The South African Police Service prides itself on envisioning a South Africa where it will act as the spear and shield, to create a safe and secure environment for all people in South Africa. In this context, your assignment to our Province as police officers requires that you devote yourselves singly and collectively, to fight crime relentlessly with every fibre of your being.
As you exit the training pipeline, you will soon realise that it is much more challenging out there. Your innocence will be tested and short-lived, as you come face-to-face, with the coarse and ugly face of crime.
In particular, contact crime such as rape, gender-based violence, violence against children and hate crimes against members of the LGBTQIA+ community, murder, armed robbery and other crimes against the state, such as the destruction of infrastructure and other forms of economic sabotage.
In this regard, you are called upon to conduct yourselves outstandingly with valour, commitment, selflessness, discipline and integrity.
Your core mission remains, to prevent and combat anything that may threaten the safety and security of any community; investigate any crimes that threaten the safety and security of any community; ensure offenders are brought to justice and participate in efforts to address the root cause of crime, at an institutional level.
I say this quite conscious of the fact that, you remain at the tail-end of the hierarchy of the machinery that is poised and deployed against the monster that is crime in our communities and yet, with your boots planted in every strategic space within which we fight crime, you are part of an important arsenal against hard core crime and social crimes. Thus, you are expected to be professional and solution-oriented, in fighting crime.
In your line of duty, you will find those that have long been in the service and they might say and do things that demoralize you. Do not allow their sayings or deeds, to deprive you of hope and determination to serve your people.
And yet others within the service, will serve as your mentors and role models that are willing to teach you, to learn the ropes. Embrace them, and learn their stories of success in this profession and seek to iterate and replicate them.
Make the best of what you been given.
As new constables and now part of an army of women and men in blue, you are entrusted to contribute immensely to the sustenance of change for the good of the people of South Africa, based on government and society-wide efforts. This constitutes your forward march, both in a literal and figurative sense, in confronting head-on, the phenomenon of crime in our communities.
As we gear ourselves to commemorate our National Women’s Day on 9th August, 2023, I wish to direct our MEC for Community Safety, Roads and Transport, to work ceaselessly with the police, to fundamentally change the lot of women, children, youth, the elderly and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Help protect them against crimes that are directed at them.
I am extremely proud that you have chosen policing as a profession and one that enables you to work among your own people; to understand their needs and direct your work, in fulfilment of their basic rights.
Work with them and among them, to build the most formidable fortresses against crime, in collaboration with Community Policing Forums, and understand the modus operandi of the criminal element.
Together with our MEC and government, the SAPS leadership and management yourselves, let us say: I cannot be without you. Without you, this Free State, this South African community, is an incomplete community, without one single person; without one single group, without the different components of the SAPS and the Free State Provincial Government, we are not the best that we can be.
I wish you our brand new constables, all the best in your endeavours, futures and prospects, as we strive to assist in the creation of institutions we desire, to redesign our varied needs and reach out across communities to strengthen our resolve to live in safety; to be set against criminality and dehumanizing actions.
Our dream to live in safety shall neither be deferred nor explode, for we know that no matter the challenges, the police are with us in the frontline against crime, to guarantee the freedom and security of each citizen and that citizens themselves, will do what they can, to protect and preserve our democracy.
I thank you. END.
