Programme Director, Ms Glen Gqwetha
MEC for Human Settlements, Safety & Liaison, Ms Helen Sauls-August,
Mayor of Buffalo City,
Representatives of Business Against Crime,
Community Leaders at Large,
CPF Representatives and Award Winners,
Ladies and gentlemen,
MEC Helen, the theme you provided for celebrating the 16 years of the existence of community policing forums (CPFs), “Maximum Participation Towards Safer Communities”, is so topical and so fundamental for the current situation we as police leadership, police management and indeed police officers, find ourselves in, in relation to the communities we serve.
First, as police leadership, we have an obligatory mandate to make sure that the Government’s priority: that of people living in South Africa, are and do feel safe, is fully realised. That is why the Ministry of Police has taken a decisive action to review the policy document, the White Paper for Safety and Security.
This review or revamp of policing policy is to make sure that, structures for community participation are appropriately and effectively located within the prescripts of the Constitution. Most fundamental to this policy revamp is to also articulate the need of Community Safety Forums (CSFs) to combat and prevent crime.
MEC, we need to say immediately here that CSFs are not developed to replace or rebuke the long-standing good work of the CPFs; and definitely, the CSFs will not exist in competition and conflict with the CPFs.
The policy review will make sure that they are complementary and cooperative. The CSFs will have a coordinating role, where they will bring together CPFs, the Criminal Justice Cluster and other government departments that have a role to play in crime combating and crime prevention.
In the meantime, our police management, especially the provincial and station commissioners; must ensure that, CPFs in their current legal structure are continuing to be well structured, well represented, and well functioning in their respective communities.
What is of most paramount is the well representation of police components in the CPFs. For instance, a well structured CPF will definitely include the Head of Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS); the Head of Detective Unit, and of course the Station Commander him/herself.
Central to the well-functioning of a CPF, is the role of our police officers. As we all know, the CPF was established in terms of Section 19(1) of the SAPS Act 68 of 1995, to ensure police accountability, transparency and effectiveness in the community, as opposed to a tyranny police officer of the apartheid regime.
The introduction of the CPF was to help the democratic Government in aligning the values of the police organisation with those of a democratic South Africa; aiming at producing police officers who can interact sensitively with their communities and in a manner that respects local norms and values, above all the human rights of everyone.
The tragic events of Marikana; the incidents of vigilantism; and the apprehension of corrupt cops within the South African Police Service (SAPS); have created an impression (wrong as it is), that members of the SAPS are the most corrupt, inefficient and abusive [as according to the research done by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)’s 2011 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS)].
Of course, this research is based on perceptions and attitudes of the respondents interviewed by the HSRC, and are not necessarily a representative view of the whole population.
It is a fact that, many of our police officers are hard-working, self-sacrificing public servants, who are daily dying or being injured in the line of their duty, protecting me and you.
Therefore, my message to you today is: in order for CPFs to make a huge difference in the efficiency and effectiveness of the South African Police Service, the CPFs must start in earnest to play an active and innovative role in the implementation of Sector Policing.
This government introduced sector policing because it was a policing method targeting small manageable geographical areas within a policing precinct, involving all role players in identifying the particular policing needs in each sector, and addressing the root causes of crime as well as the enabling and contributing factors.
This is to ensure effective crime prevention to reduce the levels of prioritised crimes within the community and improve community safety. The above definition of the sector policing is a clear and unambiguous acknowledgement that there is an inevitable or a “natural” police limitation in curbing crime.
This limitation is not because the police are incompetent; or that there are not enough funds for crime-busting resources. The truth is that, most of crimes committed in South Africa, are crimes arising out of factors over which the police have little or no control of whatsoever.
Factors which stimulate crime, such as poverty, unemployment; gender-inequality, and decline in the standards of morality or moral fibre, have nothing to do with police; but increasingly the police are called to curb down service delivery protests; labour strikes; and indeed domestic violence including molestation of children.
The reality is police officers today, face a society in which parents fail to raise their children appropriately as law-abiding citizens; in which some schools fail to educate children to prepare their expertise and gear them to attain professional jobs, to name just a few examples.
MEC, today, we are saying to the CPFs, they must make sure that they are well represented by all sectors of community, such as family, school, religion and peers.
The important role that these informal instruments and structures of social control play, in maintaining the fabric of society intact, which are represented by traditional institution of ethical values, needs to be recognised, and they must not be allowed to crumble down.
This can be achieved, if only the CPFs can acknowledge that communities are comprised of many different people each with his or her own skills, views and innovative ideas that can make a huge difference in Sector Policing.
Sector Policing can only be effective if CPFs can help police to adapt the policing and operations as according to sector dynamics. And, these dynamics can only be known by local people who come from families and faith-based organisations.
Soon, the Ministry of Police will call for public hearings on the review of our Policy on Safety and Security, as I had already indicated. Your duty as CPFs is to then undertake to come up with suggestions on how a CPF can promote sector policing.
Your responsibility as CPFs is to help our police officers familiarise themselves with specific neighbourhoods; and to assist the police in better identifying the challenges faced by a particular geographic area, focusing specifically on factors and trends of crime.
This will not only help the Department of Police, but will also help the Government as a whole, as specific crime generators are within different Departments’ mandates (such as Local Government, Labour, etc).
In conclusion, MEC, I would like to take this opportunity and thank you very much for inviting the Ministry of Police to this event. We are also conveying our heartfelt congratulations to the Award Winners today.
We hope your awards will serve as motivation to work more for your country and community, so that there would be a greater shared ownership of policing in South Africa.
I thank you all.
