Limpopo MEC for Safety, Security and Liaison in the Limpopo Provincial
Legislature
15 May 2007
Honourable Speaker
Honourable Premier Sello Moloto
Members of the Executive Council
Distinguished colleagues in the Legislature
Portfolio Committee on Safety, Security and Liaison
Esteemed Traditional leaders present
Provincial Commissioner Sengani and South African Police Services (SAPS)
Management
The Provincial Community Policy Forums (CPFs) Board
Leaders of religious organisation and churches
Stalwarts and veterans of our struggle
Members of the media
Distinguish quests
Ladies and gentlemen
When I joined this Department a year ago I took a conscious decision to
visit our police stations throughout the province before I extended my visit to
traditional leaders, farmers, business and religious formations. The main
objective for this was to familiarise myself with the working conditions of the
police.
My visit to the stations was an eye opener. I gained first hand information
concerning our police stations and the conditions under which members of the
SAPS work. Although the majority of the police stations in the province are in
a fairly good condition and reasonably well resourced, I must mention that
others are poorly resourced and need urgent attention. In some instances
accommodation for members and their personal needs are still a challenge.
At that time I did not invite the media to accompany me as I viewed the
visits as an in house exercise to gather information that will enhance service
delivery.
During these interactions I also discovered that in the past most of the
police stations in the province were located strategically to serve the
interests of the minority. The state of some of these police stations, their
structural design and their locations need to be corrected as they perpetuate
the legacy of apartheid. Stations such as Tuinplaas, Roedtan, Zebediela,
Bandelierkop, Letsitele, Levubu and many others were established with the
intention of protecting the interest of the few.
As a result of this situation our communities continue to be disadvantaged
in terms of safety and security and deprived of effective service delivery.
I am compelled to recall the words of one of Africa's greatest son Samora
Machel when he said, "We think we can understand reality in our sectors merely
by way of official documents, minutes, reports and memorandums in other words
we stay immured in our offices in a sea of papers so we lose a sense of
urgency, we lose a sense of the important, we all talk in meetings about
co-ordination, interaction and interdependence but we do not make the
systematic effort required to co-ordinate, we said that ministers must meet to
find a joint solution to common problems. But this is not done, the problems go
on being settled in isolation, remain unsettled. We said that national
ministers must travel in groups to the provinces to deal with specific problems
there: We said that provincial directors must as a group travel regularly into
districts to understand the local reality and settle problems. But this is not
done either."
What the late President Machel is saying is that people attend meetings that
have no significance to the community and service delivery. Sometimes people
are more concerned about their performance profile. In other words our meetings
should be fruitful and beneficial to our people. These activities must be
properly managed if we have to get results.
It is against this background and wisdom that when the responsibility of the
Department of Safety Security and Liaison was put on my shoulders, I felt
obliged to embark on a series of consultative meetings with different role
players.
Regardless of these challenges it is encouraging to note that our province
has been confirmed as the safest and secure place in the country. This
achievement was as a result of the commitment and dedication of our men and
women in blue, of course with the involvement of our community. This commitment
is in line with what our President alluded to in his State of the Nation
Address (SONA) when he said, "The overwhelming majority of these public
servants have proven over and over again in actual practice that they are
prepared to put their lives on the line and to sacrifice even the little time
they could have with their families in defence of our freedom and our
security."
Honourable Speaker and members
Last year during our tabling of the budget, we committed ourselves in this
House to continue consultation with various role players throughout the
province. In line with this commitment we managed to consult with institutions
representing traditional leadership such as House of Traditional Leaders,
Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) including 13
individual traditional leaders.
It was encouraging to note that all traditional leaders we met pledged their
support in terms of crime prevention in their respective areas. They
consistently indicated that they were committed to urge their subjects to play
an active role in the formation and activities of CPF to improve community
safety and security.
Traditional leaders consistently raised issues ranging from their security
and of lack of police visibility as a result of police stations that are far
away from the communities. In this respect our Department has noted that there
is a need for the establishment of fully fledged police stations in places
like, Magona Village near Malamulele in Vhembe, Botlokwa in Capricorn, Mapela
in Waterberg and Mokwakwaila in the Mopani District to mention but a few. Some
of the findings of this consultative meeting held with traditional leaders and
other role players were presented to the provincial commissioner where we felt
his attention is needed.
The issue of domestic violence remains a big challenge to our police as this
type of crime happen behind closed doors. Our Department is going to intensify
activism against women and children. Our Department will play a leading role in
educating our communities that the fight against the abuse of women and
children should not only be confined to 16 days but must be a continuous
exercise.
There is a great need for education and training within our people
concerning human rights issues. This concern prompted me to initiate a meeting
with the Provincial Human Rights Commission. I am pleased to announce to this
house that we have agreed to form a partnership that is going to embark on road
shows aimed at educating our people on issues related to human rights.
We also realised the importance of meeting with business, farmers through
their organised farmers union, Agri-Limpopo. In my meeting with the farmers
recently I was greatly moved by their commitment and dedication they have shown
in assisting the police to fight crime. They are prepared to finance the
appointment of a consultant who will assist in the evaluation and
implementation of sector policing in the province. This financial year will see
the continuation of this process and focused intervention in villages in all
our five districts.
Let me once more indicate, honourable Speaker, that we also had fruitful
meetings with four major commercial banks to have a feel of crime patterns
prevalent in their environment. The banks expressed grave concern regarding
widespread acts of money laundering and sporadic incidents of automatic teller
machines (ATM) bombing in the province. Although the number of the attacks on
the ATMs are low in the province compared to other areas countrywide, as a
Department we are pleased to see that the police are coming up with
comprehensive strategies to curb these incidences before they reach an alarming
proportion.
Honourable Speaker
The implementation of the Provincial Crime Prevention Strategy (PCPS)
remains the cornerstone of our priorities in our rigorous fight against crime.
Central to the successful implementation of the PCPS is community mobilisation
against crime. To intensify community mobilisation we established district
offices to ensure that the Department is accessible to broader communities in
the province.
The district offices will continue to play a significant role to facilitate
service delivery and sensitise communities to participate in crime prevention
programmes.
With the help of the district offices, we managed to have a successful
door-to-door campaign in all districts. The objective of the campaign is to
promote activism against crime in general. It is our sincere belief that this
campaign will lead us in the formation of a solid social movement against
crime. We are continuously striving to make our people understand that they are
central in the fight against crime and as such must take ownership of the
police. It is our commitment to motivate and encourage our people to stand
together and fight crime as a collective. Our victory against crime depends on
our communities understanding that the police are a weapon in their hands to
fight crime.
As 2010 FIFA World Cup approaches, the province will experience massive
economic development and much more so in tourism industry. As a result the
province will be subjected to the influence of new crime patterns. This will
render our economy vulnerable to external factors. Last year our Department in
partnership with the Department of Economic Development and Tourism and Limpopo
Tourism Parks convened Tourism Safety and Security Summit. One of the most
important resolutions taken at the summit was that it will be imperative for
the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison to be pro-active and play a
leading role in the development of an integrated tourism safety and security
plan for Limpopo.
Following the summit on ritual killings and missing persons, our Department
is unreservedly committed to lead the process of implementing the resolutions
of the summit. The summit reaffirmed an understanding by the role players that
ritual killing and missing person have become prevalent in the province
particularly within Vhembe District. The conference acknowledged the weaknesses
within our police and criminal justice system in apprehending and ensuring
successful prosecution.
In collaboration with other departments we are going to be involved in an
aggressive mass based education and awareness programme.
Honourable Speaker and members
We are pleased to indicate that the budget allocation of R37,7 million in
the 2007/08 financial year, which is an increase of 23% from last year's R29
million will go a long way in assisting the Department to fulfil its
constitutional mandate. It is our firm belief that the money will enable our
Department to strengthen the implementation of the PCPS, community mobilisation
against crime and the implementation of the resolutions of the Ritual Murder
Summit held in Thohoyandou. We are also confident that this budget will enable
us to implement some of the resolutions taken at the Safety and Security
Tourism Summit held in Tzaneen.
The budget will also allow us to strengthen our capacity by filling vacant
posts. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Provincial Treasury
for allocating our Department an increased budget that will help us address our
basic needs. It is my pleasure to table our vote as follows.
1. Administration
We have budgeted R20,250 million for support programmes and systems which
has been distributed as follows:
* ministerial: R3,649 million
* corporate services: R8,571 million
* financial management: R6,012 million
* management services: R2,018 million
The key priority areas are intervention for the successful implementation of
the Department's strategic objective and make sure that Executive Council
(ExCo) resolutions, Cabinet, cluster and inter governmental resolutions are
carried out. We want to submit to this house that there is a need to fill the
three vacant general managers' position in order to strengthen the capacity of
the Department to carry out its mandate. Last financial year we announced in
this House that we were planning to introduce an internship programme, however
due to financial constraints we were unable to kickstart the process. The
increase in this financial year's budget will afford us an opportunity to
implement the programme.
There is a need to design and implement an integrated employee wellness
strategy. However because of financial constrains our Department is unable to
implement a comprehensive employee health and wellness programme. With all
these challenges facing us we are pleased to announce that in line with
employment equity act we have manage to appoint 40% of women into management
positions which is beyond the 30% national threshold.
2. Crime prevention and community relations
The Department has set aside R5,457 million for the crime prevention and
community relations projects, which is an increase of 32% from last year's
R4,131 million. This allocation includes compensation of employees, empowerment
of youth at risk through Manyeleti Youth Academy and acquisition of goods and
services.
It will also be used to facilitate the implementation and support of crime
prevention projects and programmes in partnership with local authorities.
Through crime prevention unit, our Department will continue to support CPFs
and youth structures to consolidate our crime prevention efforts. We are
pleased to note that our communities are starting to realise that crime
prevention is not the responsibility of the police alone. Communities are
gradually taking part in crime prevention programmes to ensure safety and
security in their respective areas. A significant progress has been made to
reduce crime through the mobilisation of the communities. Our key challenge is
to ensure that we foster good relations between the SAPS and the community.
Although the relationship between the police and the community has remarkable
improved there is some negative perception that must be constantly worked
on.
We have presently managed to re-launch Community Policing Forums (CPFs) at
all our 92 police stations in the province. The Department will assist in the
process of capacity building for CPFs in their crime prevention efforts and
enhance their understanding of their oversight role.
Our wish as the Department is to establish CPFs that are all inclusive. They
must be comprised of important role players in the society, including
representatives of traditional leaders as ex-officio members.
As I have indicated above an amount of R1 million has been set aside as a
transfer to assist in providing both life and vocational skills to young people
between the ages of 16 and 24, who are unemployed or out of school. Although
the allocated amount is inadequate we will still strive to empower 330 youth
this financial year. We are encouraged by positive results that we get from the
academy, though placing of the graduates is still a major challenge. We are
also going to prioritise and strengthen our partnership with the Department of
Education to make sure that our schools are crime free zones
Monitoring and evaluation
Honourable Speaker and members
One of our critical responsibilities as per our mandate is to monitor and
evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of police service delivery, handle
complaints by the members of the public against the police. We conducted
stakeholder survey, monitored and evaluated 26 police stations precincts. We
are also happy to announce that 80% of service delivery complaints against the
police were successfully handled.
We have set aside R6,554 million for compensation of staff and
implementation of programmes and projects including the financing of a new unit
that we have recently established. SAPS transformation has been established as
a result of the heavy workload experienced in the monitoring and evaluation
unit. The mandate of SAPS transformation unit is mainly to monitor the process
of transformation in SAPS and ensure that a healthy relationship is established
between our Department and other role players in the justice cluster. Our
endeavour to transform SAPS is in line with the Department's primary objective
to have a transformed and accountable policing for a secured and safe Limpopo.
The department through this unit will embark on an in-depth study of
transformation in the SAPS.
A docket analysis tool has been developed to address the increase in the
number of cases withdrawn at station level so that we may come up with a
strategy to prevent these withdrawals. This sampling will also be extended to
those cases withdrawn at court level and find the reason of these withdrawals.
However, I must stress that the intention is to encourage a healthy partnership
between detectives and the prosecutors.
The unit will also endeavour to capacitate and commit logistic resources to
the call centre to make it fully operational. We are presently intensifying the
marketing of the call centre to all areas which were not covered before. I must
also take this opportunity to thank some of our staff members who volunteered
and sacrifice their time to engage in an outreach programme by visiting malls
in Polokwane. The objective was to share information with the public regarding
the services rendered by the Department, encourage them to speak out about
crime and to use our toll free number to report incidents of dissatisfaction or
appreciation about police services.
On 20 April this year our Department hosted Police Service Delivery
Excellence Awards. The awards were a resounding success and I want to once more
congratulate the winners in various categories. The intention of the awards is
to reward the police stations, police units and individual police officials who
consistently deliver quality service. The awards are also aimed at encouraging
the police in the province to continuously improve service delivery and to know
that their efforts will be acknowledged.
Policy, research and strategy
Honourable Speaker and members
The Department through policy, research and strategy unit conducts research,
which enhances and intensifies the oversight responsibility. These researches
will assist to determine the changing crime patterns and quality of
investigation as demanded by the community. We will ensure that the root causes
of crime in our society are established to guarantee that proper investigative
mechanisms are put in place. The research will assist with the analysis of
crime statistics which will help the department in developing appropriate crime
combating strategies.
During the previous financial year the Department through the policy,
research and strategy unit undertook the following research projects.
* Audit on Victim Empowerment Programme (VEP) facilities: This will inform
the VEP Summit that will come up with resolutions that will culminate in the
formulation of a provincial VEP plan.
* Study on drug abuse and its effect on crime: A case study of selected
secondary and high schools in the Limpopo Province.
* Improved co-ordination mechanism: Developed in collaboration with business
performance systems and National Treasury multi agency provincial co-ordination
model to enable social crime prevention.
The unit is currently conducting a research project on assessment of current
spatial location of police stations in relation to needs of communities.
The research is currently being conducted to selected police stations but
our plan is to extend it to other police stations and their respective
precincts.
The following research projects, honourable Speaker, are in the
pipeline:
* an in-depth study on drugs and violence in schools (in collaboration with
Department of Education),
* analysis of provincial crime statistics, station performance and flashpoints
to inform and direct crime awareness campaigns and this will be coupled with
monitoring and evaluation oversight visits.
Stakeholders' surveys will be conducted in the precincts of 15 selected
police stations. The survey will provide us with information on the root causes
of crime, determine community needs and changing crime patterns. We will
intensify the research on drugs and its effect on crime at schools which will
lead to a symposium which will be held in collaboration with the Department of
Education. We have allocated R500 000 to carry out these responsibilities
Communications
Honourable Speaker
In the 2006/07 financial year we were pleased to see our Department
establishing a fully-fledged communication unit to ensure that the programmes
and events of the Department are marketed and communicated to communities. This
unit assisted a great deal in dealing and correcting negative perceptions the
media and the public had about the Department. It played an important role to
maximise public participation in crime prevention programmes and intensifying
media coverage on the Department's outreach initiatives.
I am sure that this house will agree with me that the 2006/07 financial year
was characterised by distressing incidents of ritual killings, a series of
gruesome killing, missing persons, abuse of women and children and a number of
other social crimes. The communication unit was always there in these difficult
times to issue statements from the departmental point of view on these
unfortunate incidents.
The launching of the departmental newsletter will go a long way in assisting
the continuous marketing of the PCPS. It is important to continue with this
publication to educate our people that the main objective of the PCPS is to
bring the reduction of crime in the province.
This financial year we have set aside R1,435 million for the promotion and
implementation of the departmental programmes. The unit pulled all the stops to
ensure that community participation and interaction in the departmental
programmes is maximised. This was evident by a large turnout at all our
events.
Last year with the budget of R1,03 million, the unit managed to organise one
of the biggest mass rally on crime prevention at Mutale's Makonde Sports Ground
in the Vhembe District.
The Department through its communication unit was instrumental in the
establishment of solid partnership with some of the media houses in the
province. The partnership has since proved to be advantageous to the Department
as through this co-operation our events registered maximum attendance.
The partnership contributed a great deal in informing and educating
communities about our programmes. We want to take this opportunity to thank all
media houses for playing a significant role in informing communities about our
programmes, projects and other activities. Our success in hosting and
organising the launch of 16 Days Of Activism Against Women and Child Abuse, the
hosting of the summit on ritual killings and missing person in Thohoyandou,
community mobilisation against crime and Police Service Excellence Awards to
mention just a few are good examples of the fruits of this partnership.
In conclusion, honourable Speaker, as I have already indicated that last
year we had two summits, one on ritual killings and missing persons and the
other on tourism safety and security, the implementation of the resolutions of
these summits will have a huge impact on our meagre budget. The addition of
seven police stations to our province from Mpumalanga will also become an added
financial responsibility which demands appropriate financing. The fact that our
province is sharing borders with three South African Development Community
(SADC) countries, Botswana Zimbabwe and Mozambique imply that we must have a
multi lateral engagement with them to combat crime.
The introduction of district offices in all the five districts will make
serious inroads to our finances. In this connection the Provincial Treasury
must take into account the financial burden that is going to be placed on our
doorsteps. However, we want to assure this House that with these limited
financial resources we are resolved to fight crime by all means at our
disposal.
I thank you! Ndaaa!
Issued by: Limpopo Provincial Government
15 May 2007
