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Star of the year awards
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Provincial Safety, Liaison & Transport

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EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
 SPEECH DELIVERED BY NEIL NAIDOO ON BEHALF OF  MEC NEER  AT STAR OF THE YEAR AWARD HELD IN EAST LONDON OFFICES CLUB
ON 28 JUNE 2000

PROVINCIAL COMMISSIONER
 AREA COMMISSIONERS
 STATION COMMANDERS
 AREA BOARD
CPF AND OTHER DIGNITARIES

I want to firstly express my great appreciation on behalf of MEC, Mr Dennis Neer to the East London Area Commissioner today to witness and 
be part of this auspicious event, namely the Star of the Year Award.

I further want to congratulate this area for issuing these awards to police men and women who have dedicated their lives in the service of 
our beloved country. It is our appreciation as a department to be part and parcel of this traditional yearly function in encouraging our 
police officers who have achieved this greatest honor.

I would like to see in the panel evaluating police members for these awards, CPF members playing a crucial role in the initial stages of 
selection and nomination process, advising as to the criteria for the best strengthening unity, good relationships and trust to our police 
officers particularly as the community is our number one client and they can measure the quality of services we give them.

The government has adopted community policing as a style of policing and CPFs have been identified as a vehicle to promote this, therefore 
CPFs should be engaged as a critical partner to assist in the fight against crime especially by assisting in victim empowerment centers and 
admin duties for detectives etc.

We should introduce a culture where all of us as policemen and women should be seen as stars of the year for the East London area. This 
could be possible if all of us can share the vision of a transformed police service for the best policing of our areas. Lets take our 
profession seriously and prove wrong those people who were undermining and taking the police service as just a last resort when seeking 
employment and choosing careers.

Our policy direction of the department this year as you might know is to see a speedy transformation taking place in the service for the 
better part of quelling out mistrust between our members. Affirmative action, affirmative training and above all service delivery should be 
emphasized in order that everybody could feel secured and happy in the service.

The process of redistribution of resources especially vehicles and human resources to disadvantaged areas should be expedited as most of 
the crime happens in these areas. All role players especially unions and managers could play a leading role in boosting the morale of our 
police members in changing not only our face but actions in this profession.

As police members we are appealing to you not to protect your colleagues who are involved in corrupt activities, but to assist us as 
government to bring about a new ethos and values to our policing system.We need to embark on an internal project similar to operation 
Impimpi that worked successfully with our communities.

Transformation is not about black and white. The biggest challenge to us is transforming peoples attitudes that will impact on effective 
service delivery.

CPFs should also encourage our communities to report whatever misuse of vehicles by police for the better monitoring and a watch-dog role. 
We should be seen as working together in a partnership in the fight against crime that can be committed if there is unity amongst 
ourselves.

I want also to commend the police for the vigorous approach and commitment to ensuring the success of operation crackdown which is not only 
seeing crime reduced but building the confidence of our communities by your successes. Operation Crackdown calls for an integrated strategy 
of all law enforcement agencies and the one major challenge for us is how to we sustain these operations with our limited resources. What 
we are asking for is creative and innovative police managers that will see Operation Crackdown as an effective management strategy.We 
further need to develop a strategy that ensures maximum community participation as in most cases our successes to combating crime is as a 
result of our communities.

It is our challenge for all of us here in ensuring the

sustainability of such projects for the better protection of our communities from organised crime syndicates.

I also at this juncture want to urge you to encourage all police stations in your area to enter the Saambou Bank Community Policing 
Competition. The focus of this years competition is :

(a) Service Delivery to the Communities.
 (b) Crime Prevention and Combating
 (c) Police Community Relations

(Expand) 2 Categories - GOLD AND PLATINUM

Finally on behalf of the MEC, Mr Neer let me take this opportunity of congratulating each police member who has been a finalist and we urge 
all police members to continuously give your best and be stars of the police service.

In conclusion let me say awards like these should encourage team work, dedication and professionalism in the service and we as government 
appreciate and will support these kinds of initiatives by our police services.

I thank you

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