POLOKWANE - The National Commissioner of the police General Fannie Masemola had on Friday 01 July 2022 through a 2 session consultative meeting engaged with all the 104 police stations of Limpopo represented by the station's relief commanders, station commanders, district and provincial management at Bolivia lounge in Polokwane, Limpopo.
Forming part of the Panel was The National Commissioner General Masemola, Deputy National Commissioner General Vuma, head of HRM Lieutenant General Ntsiya, Acting divisional for VISPOL operational services Major General Mathundzi Acting detective forensic Major General Motsepe and Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant General Thembi Hadebe.
National Commissioner, with this few words I would like to welcome you Sir into the province and know that we are at your disposal, we will not say we are here to support you but we are here to perform our duties. Said the Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant General Thembi Hadebe welcoming the National Commissioner.
General Fannie Masemola highlighted the purpose of the 1st session as to engage with the people who work as CSCs so that he can understand some of the challenges they are facing while performing their duties and to see if they are moving together with the purpose of serving the people of South Africa.
He further emphasized that he wants to engage with the members of the relief command in terms of service delivery and what to do to make sure that the people of Limpopo and those who are visiting are safe.
The National Commissioner encouraged the members of the police to be cautious about their surroundings and remember that they are a reflection of SAPS.
"we are living in the 4th Industrial Revolution where everyone is technologically advanced and therefore everyone is a journalist ready to capture any wrong move you do and make it trend. Make sure you leave to the standard that will represent the organization well." Said General Masemola
The relief commanders were given the platform to share with the panel some of the challenges, grievances and complains they are faced with in their line of duties and also to come up with possible solutions to those difficulties.
Some of the challenges that were raised by relief commanders from different stations were:
* Shortage of Manpower in police stations.
* Vacant posts of data typist not filled.
* Police cells that need to be renovated or repaired.
* Lack of vehicles.
* Servicing large areas with few resources.
* Shortage of water.
* Electrical faults that has been on-going since 2014.
* Other police stations are without backup generators.
* Vhulaudzi SAPS raised an issue of struggling to register cases because of poor network coverage and also says their fence is damaged and that puts their safety at stake.
General Masemola immediately responded to solving the network coverage problem by offering the station a 3G simcard that will assist with better network coverage.
In response to this problems the Deputy National Commissioner General Vuma addressed on the issue of Capacity and promotions, she said that they do not have enough capacity and the management acknowledges that even the minister is aware, that is why there is an engagement between the national treasury and the national Commissioner, to at least give them more money to recruit more police officers, that is why for the first time this year they were able to recruit 10000 police officers.
“The current promotional policies are problematic because it is not possible as we cannot afford, our organization is a triangle we can only have one General and unfortunately we cannot all be generals one day. I'm inviting you all to submit your inputs as to how we can improve our promotional policies to make it affordable." Said General Vuma
Concluding the first session National Commissioner assured the members that they have heard their cry and will go and look at their submittions to see which solutions will be best to solve their concerns. He further announced that there is seven point four million (R7.4 million) that has been given to the province to be used to fight Gender Based Violence in the province especially in policing areas that have reported high cases of GBV like Seshego , Mankweng and Thohoyandou.
Continuing with the business of the day the national Commissioner engages with the station commanders, district and provincial management where he also highlighted the purpose of the session as to listening to what the station commanders has to say to him and which solutions they are bringing.
The session was attended by the newly appointed MEC of Transport and Community Safety Polly Boshielo.
During her speech MEC pleaded with the members of the police to come together to restore their hope and commitment within communities as the people have lost hope in them.
During the meeting the commissioner realized that most of the problems of water shortage, lack of generators, distances between police stations, lack of vehicles raised by the station commanders were similar to those that are faced by relief commanders and promised to get to the bottom of it also taking into account their inputs submitted on how to overcome those problems.
Concluding the meeting the Commissioner thanked everyone who participated in this meeting and assured them that their cry had been heard and they will be attended to accordingly.
Source: South African Police Service