Deputy Minister of Police, Ms Makhotso Sotyu
Free State MEC for Police, Roads and Transport, Mr Butana Komphela
SAPS Free State Provincial Commissioner, Lt Gen Khehla Sithole
Executive Mayor of Mangaung District Municipality, Mr Thabo Manyoni
SAPS Free State Deputy Provincial Commissioners and Management present
Representatives from the Free State Provincial CPF Board and Business
Representatives from Civic structures and Youth formations present
Distinguished Guests
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen
As elected government servants, we are humbled to interact with you as the community of Mangaung, as we together work towards improving policing and at the same time strengthen-cooperation between police and community.
Almost on a weekly basis, as the police leadership we are interacting directly with the communities. One of the prominent complaints and dissatisfaction that is shared with us is around the slow response time with calls that are logged within our 10111 centres.
Our presence this morning is primarily to officially open the Mangaung 10111 Command Centre so that it can improve and bridge the gap between victims of crime and the police. Service delivery is a mandate and that is why improving policing must not be viewed as a favour to society. It is a duty that must be effective and efficient.
Perhaps from on onset we need to emphasise the importance of our transformation efforts of the South African Police Service (SAPS). We cannot begin to improve policing and providing better services if we do not drive the transformation agenda of this institution.
As most of you may be aware, we are in the process of reviewing the White Paper on Safety and Security, primarily to ensure we turn SAPS into a functional machinery that is continuously improving on its deliverables. Broadly, this speaks to a transformation process that is results-driven, effective and responsive to the safety needs of society.
As we emphasised in the draft White Paper, we stressed that transformation within the SAPS in the broader sense must be aimed at changing the internal police environment and culture into a professional, representative, efficient, effective, transparent and accountable service. It must be a service which upholds and protects the fundamental rights of citizens whilst executing its mandate in accordance with the Constitution and the needs of the community.
Community-orientated policing must speak to the manner in which police operate and how they understand and engage with the communities they serve. Equally this philosophy must recognise that policing is not something done to people but rather policing is something that is done with people. To achieve these, systems such as 10111 centres are important.
The opening of this 10111 Command Centre must speak and support our triple-C approach. This methodology speaks to the following aspects:
- The need for greater command and control within the police. Part of command and control must address how we are managing our members at a provincial and national level.
- Management is not only about issuing instructions but also managing the how these instructions are implemented. An effective station commander must be on the ground, overseeing a station daily; being in touch with the communities, Community Police Forum (CPFs) and importantly, leading by example. We are emphasising the need for management to be held accountable and to reassert discipline within the police.
- The need for greater co-ordination also requires our focus. All our different components of the police need to be working together and supporting each other. We shall be adopting an adage that says: an injury to one is an injury to all. We are in this together, not as individuals.
- Finally, we must improve both internal and external communication within SAPS. We are improving communication within the police as well as how we communicate with the society we are policing. Police must ensure that once they arrest criminals, communicate to society that such scoundrels are now behind bars.
Failure to do so, leads to anxiety, strained-relations and perceptions that police are ineffective, when in fact they are effective.
Two years ago, we piloted a flagship 10111 project in partnership with Business against Crime South Africa in Midrand, Gauteng. The project delivered excellent results which were compatible with industry standards. Some of the notable outcomes resulting from the intervention have included assessments and quicker turn-around response calls, effective monitoring systems and significant financial savings to the department.
The idea at the time was to ensure that as we build 10111 command centres anywhere in the country, we benchmark our centres with a clear blueprint plan. Indeed the lessons learnt have assisted in improved efficiency, timeous and better management of calls when society reports crimes to the police. Through qualitative management of our 10111 centres, we can improve performance putting in place a human resource complement that is well-capacitated and evaluated on a regular basis.
To achieve this, police management at this centre must ensure they conduct quality assurance, performance evaluation systems and processes. One of the fundamental aspects to achieving effective systems is a need to develop flexible shift hours to reduce the high rate of abandoned calls. In addition we urge the provincial management of police to consider a process whereby identified underperformers are coached by supervisors and shift commanders.
We also wish to utilise this important occasion to urge society to help the police in managing this centre. We appeal to society to ensure that calls channelled to the 10111 Command Centres serve the purpose, which is to report criminals. However if we continuously receive prank or non-police related calls, this will not only cause unnecessary delays to the system but keep more and more criminals on the loose.
Our internal pilot analysis indicated that an estimated 76% of all calls received from the public were typically non-police related. These calls would vary from prank calls, emergency services enquiries, (for ambulance and fire brigade services), requesting of road directions to hospitals, hotels and requesting legal advice relating to domestic violence and/or other personal problems.
While we acknowledge that there may have been some challenges at some of the centres across the country, we began to put corrective measures to address these challenges. The rationale behind continuous improvement is not to simply replace what is not effective but to also manage and improve current resources at our disposal.
Some of the lessons drawn from our Gauteng pilot project had revealed that a significantly higher percentage of calls received by the Call Centre were typically abandoned by the operators for a variety of reasons, including negligence and lack of responsibility and commitment by call-takers.
We cannot and shall not tolerate such negligence and that is why monitoring systems must be implemented by the provincial management. To demonstrate this point, a monitoring scorecard measuring a list of applicable performance indicators must be developed for each department in this centre.
Results must be measured based on improvement, which would contribute towards the improvement of the operational results of the centre. Once we leave this place, we do not want to hear reports about the high volume of abandoned calls by operators.
We also urge communities across the country, to report crime immediately as opposed to first conducting searches on your own capacities, whether suspected rapists or drug lords. The delay in reporting leads to some communities resorting to vigilantism and that to a certain extent is based on perceived lack to police pro-activeness.
The success and effectiveness of policing is primarily embedded in the close cooperation between SAPS as a law enforcement agency and all spheres of the community. A SAP is focusing its policing efforts towards strengthening community involvement and active participation at police station level with the community policing structures.
We must ensure that the Mangaung 10111 Command Centre becomes a catalyst in ensuring that criminals are dealt a blow in their acts. We are not naive to the challenges that have been experienced in some of the call centres in various parts of the country.
The current environment in which the police have to execute its mandate is a challenging one. Despite the challenging environment, our police officers have been able to record significant success in its fight against crime. It is a trajectory that we commit ourselves to continuing in the foreseeable future.
I thank you.
