Police Minister Bheki Cele has called on communities to work with the South African Police Service (SAPS) to curb crime in the country.
The Minister on Tuesday made the call at the Cape Town City Hall during a Parliamentary debate of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).
The Joint Sitting of the National Assembly (NA) and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) are on Tuesday and Wednesday debating the President’s SONA, which he delivered last week. President Ramaphosa will respond to the debate on Thursday.
Communities joining forces with the South African Police Service (SAPS), he said, “would eventually realise the vision of having violent crimes in the country resolved in the prescribed times”.
“We are also making a clarion call to other sections of society - be it the academia, business, the clergy, the media, and other organised groupings - don’t be spectators, join the fight against crime.”
Cele welcomed President Ramaphosa’s announcement that government would recruit more officers in the 2023/24 financial year.
“We thank the President for responding to the call of strengthening the police service by allocating 10 000 trainee graduates in the past year.
“We are also training another 10 000 this year. That will help with the visibility of police but also it will help us give a pool to train the special units and be able to respond to the different crimes that are happening in South Africa. It does not mean that we are not responding at the present moment,” he said.
In his address last week, the President said the specialised police teams that were working on tackling crimes such as kidnapping, extortion and illegal mining had already made several breakthroughs, arresting dozens of suspects and achieving several convictions.
Despite challenges in the service, he said the police continue to make significant progress in the fight against crime.
“There are people that have been arrested, especially in crimes [such as] the construction mafia, and [crime at Eskom]. Last year alone, we arrested 4 990 people that committed gender-based violence.
"Of these, 198 were handed life sentences for GBV," Cele said.
The debate coincided with the 10-year anniversary since the death of former model Reeva Steenkamp, who was on the day shot and killed by her boyfriend and celebrated Paralympian, Oscar Pistorius, at his Pretoria home.
“Woman are still killed today,” Cele said, stressing that efforts should intensified to curb the scourge.
He said while government agrees that there is a need to clamp down on illegal firearms, police had made progress in this regard.
“At least 65 952 illegal firearms have been destroyed in the previous year. We will continue to hunt these guns. We will continue to strengthen the law [so] that people [are] safe,” he said.
He called on the public to work with law enforcement agencies to curb crime, especially GBV.
Source: South African Government News Agency