Minister of Mineral Resources, Ms Susan Shabangu
Limpopo MEC for Safety, Security and Liaison, Ms Joyce Mashamba
All SAPS Lieutenant Generals present
Sekhukhuni District Municipality Executive Mayor, Cllr David Magabe
Distinguished Traditional Leaders (Dikgoshi) present
CEOs from different mining organisations present
Leaders from Labour unions present
Representatives from Business, Community Policing Forums and NGOs present
Distinguished guests
The Community of Burgersfort and surrounding areas
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen.
At the core of the government programme is the obligation to improve the quality of life of all the citizens, for them to exercise their freedoms and use their talents to help our society flourish.
In the 20 years of democracy under the ANC-led government, there have been concerted efforts on effective delivery of services, especially in addressing service delivery backlogs in the most disadvantaged communities. We have also focused on social and economic development for the poorest members of communities, creating the necessary capacity, systems and structures for effective government as well as participatory governance.
Whilst service delivery and infrastructure backlogs still persist, particularly in smaller towns and in rural areas, significant progress has been made over the past 20 years in improving access to basic services such as water, sanitation, and electricity as well as employment levels.
Various other sectors of our economy including infrastructure, clothing and textile have also undergone rapid growths. The mining sector was not immune to such evolution; and the resultant challenges.
Despite this progress, as government we acknowledge that more still needs to be done to address the three resilient fault lines, which are unemployment, poverty and inequality as identified by governing party. We further recognise that in areas where citizens are unhappy on progress, through freedom of expression, the citizens have a right to express grievances through public protests.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The right to peaceful assembly forms a cornerstone of our democracy; built on the principles of collective expression in whichever form they may occur. The slow pace of development and service delivery, and the widening inequality gap has resulted in a surge in mass protests since mid-2000.
Police are thus continually being called upon to respond to the manifestations of discontent with government service delivery and labour disputes. Research conducted supports this indicating a significant increase in the proportion of mass gatherings that turn violent. This then requires that the police have the ability of the police to effectively manage these situations.
The provincial launch of the Limpopo Mine Crime Combating Forum (MCCF) should be understood from the above-mentioned context. It was initiated by government and falls under the auspices of the Framework Agreement for a Sustainable Mining Industry entered into by Organised Labour, Organised Business and Government. We launched the national MCCF in Rustenburg, North West in August this year.
This fundamental step which we undertook, collectively, was demonstrative of our commitment to:
- Act decisively to enforce the rule of law, maintain peace during strikes and other protests relating to labour disputes, ensure protection of life, property and the advancement of the rights of all citizens, including crime prevention measures.
- Ensure that law enforcement agencies act in a manner that is fair, impartial and objective and that all care is taken to protect life and property
- Put in place adequate and appropriate capacity in the form of detectives and specialist prosecution teams to prosecute cases on violence, intimidation, assault and murder.
- Prioritise the investigation and finalisation of cases arising from lawlessness in and round mining areas, in appropriate designated courts
- Enforce municipal by-laws related to gatherings and demonstrations.
Whereas the Constitution of the Republic permits unarmed and peaceful protests, the abuse of this right becomes a serious matter when participants take up arms and use unnecessary violence, which requires urgent attention and action from SAPS.
This framework clearly spells out the roles and responsibilities which must be undertaken by all of us, which inevitably, means we have a collective accountability and responsibility. We want to emphasise the point that business has a crucial role to play in this regard, particularly the mine owners.
Everybody has a role to play and we urge all stakeholders within this sector to come to the party in ensuring a stable and economically-flourishing mining sector. To demonstrate this point, the police have no control in terms of working conditions and agreements privately entered into between the miners and mines.
Such agreements are between an employer and an employee. What this means is that whenever disagreements may arise, there should be a mature and sober negotiation process to avert any destructions or intimidations, as we have seen in some cases.
As we had previously stated, we once again want to utilise this occasion to reiterate to all stakeholders, in particular the trade union representatives as well as political parties not to politicise these mining negotiations of wages, unnecessarily. The implementation of the framework is task that faces not only the police but all of us present at this historic occasion. We need to undertake this duty for the sake of this generation and future generations.
Equally, we are cognizant that police alone cannot apprehend those who cause anarchy, destroy properties and intimidate others, all under the disguise of protests. We need the support of communities. As we are here in Burgersfort, we are calling upon you as the community to work with the police. Be active in your local community policing forums so that together, we can reduce crime.
Ladies and gentlemen,
If we look at the demographic profile of Limpopo province, we have five mining districts, namely Vembe, Mopani, Capricorn, Sekhukhune and Waterberg with approximately 80 000 employees excluding sub-contractors. Most of these unrests are as a result of retrenchments, employment and wage disputes.
As we have publicly stated, all these are human relations matters and not policing; however when tensions arise and at times property destroyed, police are called to restore order.
To this end, we wish to commend our officers in Limpopo as a whole for maintaining stability because we shall not tolerate lawlessness that is disguised as public protests. That is why we have arrested 158 suspects for public violence and 60 suspects for damage to property in this province from 2012 to date. Most of these cases are currently before the criminal justice system.
Ladies and gentlemen,
During our Budget Vote in Parliament earlier this year, we informed the nation that during the 2012/13 financial year, 12 399 crowd-related incidents were responded to and successfully stabilised, including 10 517 peaceful incidents such as assemblies, gatherings and meetings. Unfortunately, of these incidents, 1 882 were violent incidents and we were effected 3 680 arrests.
One of the major challenges facing us is that the policing of public protests draws the police away from their normal policing activities and forces the police to redirect resources. This can lead to gaps in normal policing which are sharpened when the police personnel deployed to the policing of such events are drawn from local police stations.
Whilst the police have a responsibility to police gatherings within the framework of the law, the Gatherings Act confers considerable responsibilities on conveners or organizers of events to ensure that such events are carried out in an orderly and peaceful manner. Any contravention of this must result in the organisers facing criminal charges.
As we conclude, we want to emphasise that our transformation programme of the SAPS is continuing. In transforming the police, we had to strengthen civilian oversight, deepen relationships with communities, build partnerships with civil society broadly, labour and business, to contribute to the observance of the culture of human rights.
That is why we recently announced our plans to open a first Police University in South Africa and in Africa, in January 2014. This is one of the pillars of our strategy and approach in professionalising the police. We took this decision precisely to ensure that we compliment and arm our officers with both academic and policing skills, in order to be able to response adequately to policing challenges of the day.
We want to instill a sense of pride in being a member of the service. The police must transmit to public a sense of mission and purpose. The basic mission for which police exist is the prevention of crime and disorder.
Together, we shall ensure a safe, secure and economically-flourishing mining sector in Limpopo.
I thank you.
