The MEC for Community Safety, Security and Liaison, Ms Sibongile Manana is adamant that the establishment of Street Committees will come handy towards the fight against crime.
According to MEC Manana, these committees will ensure the involvement of all citizens in hindering criminals from terrorizing the community. This emerged during the regularly joint management forum (JMF), which is a meeting between the Department and the management of the Mpumalanga South African Police Services (SAPS).
Manana further briefed the Forum on the key priority areas emphasized by the Minister of Police, Mr Nathi Mthethwa that required urgent and special attention by all the sectors in the Justice Crime Prevention and Security cluster (JCPS).
The priorities include the establishment of a boarder management agency; the fighting of IT and cyber crime; corruption and the manipulation of tenders; lost docket (prevention thereof); detective and forensic investigative capacity; community partnerships and the establishment of the Community Safety Forums (CSF); performance management within the police; the speeding up of the transformation process of the SAPS; and programmes aimed at curbing violent crimes.
She stressed the fact that the department will also play its part in ensuring that these priorities are realized in order to enhance and strengthen policing in the province.
The MEC also highlighted the concerns raised from the youth parliament held at the provincial legislature last week, where young people from areas in the province mentioned, amongst other things, that most police reservists committed crime because they were not employed permanently. According to the MEC, this matter was raised sharply by the youth because it affected them on a daily basis, as it increased the number of unemployed youth.
Acting Provincial Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner Rex Machabi responded by saying that the police management will look into this matter. He further reported that when appointing police officers, SAPS ensures that their recruitment is water-tight to avoid recruiting people who are not suitable to be police officers.
The Joint Management Forum Meeting is a strategic meeting between the management of the Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison, the ICD and the Management of the SAPS - Mpumalanga. The meeting is chaired by the MEC.
This was the first meeting of the JMF since the MEC joined the Department with the purpose of allowing the management teams of the Department, SAPS and the ICD to brief her on key projects and priorities aimed at reducing the crime rate in the Province, which is targeted at between 7 to 10 percent.
Presentations made at the meeting included the provincial crime overview, the clustering of police stations in the province, the provincial 2010 integrated safety plan; the MEC's Annual Excellence Awards; the Tourism Safety Monitors Project and the AFRIKA Concept.
The challenges were linked to rogue reservists and farmers, dysfunctional CPF structures and service delivery protests in various municipalities.
Manana was happy with regards to policing, particularly in areas where service delivery protests erupted. She commended police officers who ensured that members of the community who participated during the protests were calmed and those who broke the law arrested.
However, he warned them to be careful and to use minimal force when dealing with protesters in order to avoid loss of lives.