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Policy Speech 2000/01
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Safety Liaison and Transport

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 EASTERN  CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

DEPARTMENT OF PROVINCIAL SAFETY AND LIAISON

POLICY SPEECH 2000/01

14 MARCH 2000



INTRODUCTION

The Honourable Speaker
 Honourable Premier
 Members of the Executive Council
 Members of the Provincial Legislature

It is a privilege, honour and duty for me to be afforded this opportunity to present the policy speech of the Department of Provincial 
Safety and Liaison for 2000/01, the Provincial Anti-Corruption Year.

In his address at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town on the 25 June 1999 President Thabo Mbeki said:"... Steadily the dark clouds of 
despair are lifting, giving way to our season of hope... One of the central features of the brutish society we seek to bring to an end is 
the impermissible level of crime and violence. Acting together with the people, we will heighten our efforts radically to improve the 
safety and security of all our citizens..." This is what we are about and the Department of Safety and Liaison continues to exist for.

Addressing this very legislature on the 10 February 2000, Honourable Premier Stofile said "... We must focus on the short to medium term 
strategies of combating crime. These are: strengthening policing structures, implementing the NCPS and making sure that as many sectors of 
society as is possible participate in fighting crime..." This is a truism indeed. Before detailing how we will go about trying to achieve 
the above let me touch briefly on the strategic focus for the war against crime for the three years ahead.

STRATEGIC FOCUS 2000 - 2003

For the year ahead the main focus of our efforts will be combating crime. Service delivery is to be integrated into this crime combating. 
Community safety demands that crime be stabilised and normalised. We must address the causes of crime and thereby deter the commission of 
crime. In doing so we hope to reduce the levels of crime and public fear. We must increase the quality of service delivery thereby 
increasing the levels of trust by the communities in the SAPS. Increased levels of public satisfaction is paramount to creating a climate 
conducive to socio-economic development.

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES

The Department for Safety and Liaison in the province has, in line with the strategic focus above, identified the following strategic 
priorities for the 2000/01 financial year:-

~ civilian oversight and monitoring

~ crime prevention

~ community policing

Civilian Oversight and Monitoring

At the provincial level this is, broadly, to ensure that government policy and national standards are adhered to, government objectives are 
achieved and that the needs of communities are addressed.

Crime Prevention

Provincial governments are tasked with the responsibility of leading social crime prevention in their respective provinces. We must 
consolidate and prioritise social crime prevention initiatives and activities in alignment with national priorities.

Community Policing

This forms the bedrock of effective law enforcement and crime prevention. More importantly as has been demonstrated in South Africa and 
internationally, problem solving oriented partnership strategies for policing produce positive results in terms of reducing crime.

To achieve the above we will, during the financial year 2000/2001, embark on the following programmes:

PROGRAMME 1: ADMINISTRATION/POLICY (R3 893 000)

The overall aim of this programme is to ensure overall management of the Department. This programme has four core focus areas, viz. to 
ensure that:-

~ the provincial departmental activities are in line with national policy;

~ communication is rendered both within and outside the department;

~ the delivery of services by SAPS to the communities is improved;

~ the SAPS focuses on gender issues and domestic violence.

For the financial year 2000/01 activities under this programme will centre around the following:-

(a) Policy

As part of ensuring that the departmental activities are not out of step with national policy various divisions will, on a continual basis, 
hold meetings with national as well as other provinces thereby ensuring proper co-ordination. We must not forget that the SAPS is a 
national and not a federation of provincial services.

In the year ahead we intend monitoring the SAPS from a closer range than before. This will enable us to be in a better position to advise 
SAPS in the delivery of services to the communities. Members of the secretariat will, in the coming financial year, sit and be part of SAPS 
meetings at the appropriate levels so that they may deliberate and contribute to policy discussions within SAPS. In a word, we must monitor 
through advice. We hope this will add value to the decision making process within SAPS. To enable the Secretariat to discharge this 
responsibility diligently and efficiently an inspection visit to all the eight policing areas in the province will be undertaken at the 
beginning of the financial year. This will enable us to establish some bench marks. The top management of the Secretariat will be 
responsible and directly involved in this exercise.

(b) Communication

Communicating effectively in support of law enforcement and crime prevention is our responsibility. We believe that communication has a 
very important strategic contribution to make, particularly in our situation. We are, therefore, going to be bolstering the capacity of 
this division by bringing it under the policy branch of the department. This will make a break with the traditional mindset of 
treating/regarding and structuring communication as a mere support function. We will position it such that it has access to both the 
Secretariat and SAPS management. Our communication activities will be aimed at:-

~ providing communication support for the achievement of departmental objectives.

~ encouraging an information based approach to crime prevention and reduction

~ improving public access to services in the Criminal Justice System

~ managing public perceptions of crime by, amongst others, interpreting information disseminated to the public and keeping the public 
abreast of developments in the war against crime and

~ improving and sustaining public participation in social crime prevention partnerships.

(c) Support Services

This division will continue to render support services to the MEC and the rest of the Secretariat to enable them to discharge their 
responsibilities effectively.

As vacancies within the department have a bearing on the capacity of the department to deliver services, we will in the year 2000/01 
attempt to fill all vacant posts within the present establishment. In this exercise we are committed to the resolution of the Executive 
Council on the utilisation of staff additional to the establishment, hence our first priority will be to recruit those already within the 
employ of the provincial government. As an intermediate step we will place our personnel according to the policing areas.

In line with the new Public Finance Management Act we will ensure training of personnel so as to keep them abreast of developments in this 
field as well as improve our financial management capacity.

PROGRAMME 2: OVERSIGHT AND MONITORING ( R204 000)

The overall aim of our activities under this programme is to monitor, assess and evaluate the adherence by SAPS to national policy and 
standards. Let me hasten to clarify from the onset that our understanding of monitoring is active monitoring and not passive monitoring of 
the spying type.

It is not our responsibility to spy on SAPS but to actively and directly engage SAPS with the sole aim of ensuring that it adheres to 
government policy and national standards. In our monitoring we endeavour to be pro-active rather than reactive. We are not bent on catching 
out members of the SAPS but on overseeing them with the purpose of ensuring that they deliver services to the communities in line with the 
norms and directions of the present government.

Oversight and monitoring as we said even last year, like a thread, run through all the activities of the department. In an attempt to bring 
services closer to the people where they live , we will be decentralising and creating a presence in the policing areas. In this coming 
financial year we will work towards opening four offices to service our policing areas.

We have grouped areas as follows:-

~ Uitenhage and Karoo

~ Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown

~ East London and Queenstown

~ Umtata and Drakensberg

Believing that a journey of a hundred miles begins with the first step we are engaging Treasury in discussions with an intention of 
structuring ourselves in the same way as the District Councils. As indicated earlier we will be recruiting from the provincial staff that 
is additional to the establishment.

Activities under this programme will focus on monitoring the following four wide areas viz:-

~ community policing

~ policing priorities and objectives

~ transformation

~ investigation of fraud within government departments

(a) Community Policing

We are committed to entrenching community policing in the province as well as strengthening community policing structures. We will continue 
participating in the Community Policing Task Team (CPTT) in the year ahead. The CPTT is composed of the Secretariat, SAPS, Provincial 
Community Policing Board as well as a representative from the Department for International Development (DFID) which is co-funding the 
project aimed at assisting policing in the Eastern Cape. The CPTT is charged with the responsibility of establishing and strengthening 
community policing structures. The Community Police Fora are still without a budget. This sorry state of affairs continues notwithstanding 
the fact that these are established under the highest law of the land. Let us repeat as we said earlier that community policing is the 
bedrock of effective law enforcement and crime prevention.

(b) Policing Priorities and Objectives

Six policing and organisational priorities have been chosen for the year ahead. These are:-

~ organised crime

~ serious and violent crime

~ combating crimes against women and children

~ improving basic service delivery to all communities

~ budget and resource management

~ human resource management

We will monitor the performance of the SAPS in the province in relation to the above areas.

(c) Transformation

Transformation covers a wide range of areas like affirmative action,affirmative training, redistribution of resources, appointments and 
discipline within the South African Police Service.

Affirmative action

We will intensify our participation in the Affirmative Action Task Team which comprises the SAPS, Organised Labour, Provincial Community 
Policing Board and the Secretariat. We will continue to monitor and ensure that the SAPS consciously affirms the previously disadvantaged 
groups especially African women.

Affirmative training

The reality of our history has ensured that at amalgamation of the three police forces in the Eastern Cape Province a disparity remained in 
terms of the levels of training. Officers from the former homelands of Transkei and Ciskei remain relatively poorly trained whereas their 
counterparts from the SAP were relatively better trained. We are committed to ensuring that this imbalance is addressed through affirmative 
training.

Redistribution of resources

We are still to achieve a fair redistribution of resources in the province, both human and material. This will continue to receive our 
attention even in the year ahead.

Appointments

The process of appointments within the SAPS remains a source of great concern for us. We will continue to monitor and participate in this 
process so that we make a meaningful impact on transformation by ensuring representativity within the SAPS.

Discipline

The creation of the anti corruption unit within the SAPS has had the unintended consequence of removing the responsibility for discipline 
of his/her members from the Station Commissioner. This will have to be reversed. We will monitor the enforcement of discipline by station 
commissioners over their members. We will galvanise the communities in exercising a watchdog role in this regard.

(d) Fraud

We are committed to the eradication of fraud within government departments. It is in this regard that the Government Commercial Crime 
Special Investigation Unit was set up. We will continue to oversee and monitor its investigation of fraud cases within government 
departments.

PROGRAMME 3: CRIME PREVENTION ( R2 136 000)

The overall aim of the programme is to implement the National Crime Prevention Strategy in the province. The programme will focus on 
initiating and co-ordinating social crime prevention programmes. In his address at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town on the 25 June 
1999, the President of the Republic of South Africa, Hon Thabo Mbeki said in part "... A study conducted by the Co-ordination and 
Implementation Unit in the Office of the Deputy President has confirmed what surely all of us have known, of the correlation, between 
crime, poverty and race. The areas of high crime concentration, including all crimes of violence, are the black and poor areas of our 
country... We will therefore make multi disciplinary interventions in these areas, starting with a few pilot areas, drawing in all spheres 
of government and engaging the people themselves in an offensive to ensure that we reduce the levels of crime in these areas which are 
characterised by a high incidence of crime. ... The partnership between government and the people will be one of the hallmarks of the 
national offensive against crime and violence..."

The National Crime Prevention Strategy intended as a comprehensive multi-agency approach to crime prevention emphasises the social crime 
prevention approach. International experience suggests that it is more cost effective in the medium to long term to invest in projects 
which prevent crime, than in simply spending more on the institutions of policing, courts and corrections.

We will also evaluate and support social crime prevention programmes at the local level. We intend mobilising resources for social crime 
prevention programmes. We aim to establish public and private partnerships to support crime prevention. Local government, the level of 
government which is closest to the citizenry, is uniquely placed to actively participate in social crime prevention initiatives and to 
redirect the provision of services to facilitate crime prevention. This is so simply because all forms of crime are committed at the local 
level, no matter what type of crime it is. Secondly each and every person resides and/or belongs to a particular locality hence he/she is 
affected by particular socio economic conditions prevailing in his or her locality. It is in these localities that factors that contribute 
to the occurrence of crime exist. Social crime prevention does not only target the causes of crime, but in the longer term, does so in the 
most cost effective way.

Many issues of day-to-day governance and crime prevention are inherent to the functions of local government. Environmental design, town 
planning, decisions on the allocation and utilisation of public places like markets and ranks, municipal transportation system, are but 
some of the issues which, if properly managed, can have a direct effect on crime prevention. Local government has a key role to play in 
ensuring an environment less conducive to crime. The interventions by local government in the social, economic as well as development 
fields are of paramount importance in addressing the causes of crime as well as reducing the opportunities for committing crime.

Notwithstanding the above, the provincial government in general and this department in particular has a key role to play. We have to design 
and initiate a capacity building programme to enable municipalities to better incorporate crime prevention issues into the execution of 
their normal functions. Where specific crime prevention programmes are already established we must provide expert guidance, monitoring, 
training, material relating to best practice and advice related to the obtaining of donor, business and government funding.

We must also facilitate the inclusion of local government inputs into the policy process around crime prevention fora at provincial level. 
This will help the exchange of best practices and impact on the national policy processes. To this end we have created a new division on 
Crime Prevention with four area offices to kickstart this programme.

PROGRAMME 4: SPECIAL PROGRAMMES (R192 000)

The division will focus on four areas within SAPS viz:-

~ Service Delivery Improvement Programme

~ Victim Support Centres

~ Infrastructural Development

~ HIV/Aids

(a) Service Delivery Improvement Programme

Eighty- eight stations that are currently under the programme will be monitored through visits as well as through reports delivered at Area 
Steering Committee meetings. The first 15 stations were in Project Lifeline until the amalgamation of Project Lifeline and the Community 
Policing Pilot Project into the Service Delivery Improvement Programme in 1997. Wave 1 of the Service Delivery Improvement Programme 
consisted of 9 stations, Wave 2 consisted of 19 stations, Wave 3 consisted of 13 stations and Wave 4 consisted of 32 stations.

Focus will be on:-

~ support by the offices of Provincial and Area Commissioners to co-ordinators of the programme. We will monitor whether area co-ordinators 
are receiving the necessary support from Provincial and Area Commissioners.

~ the number of error-free dockets opened in the community service centres. We will monitor and ensure that SAPS improves the standard and 
quality of dockets.

~ morale of members. We will monitor efforts and measures taken to uplift morale of SAPS members because low moraleis a recipe for poor 
service delivery.

~ absenteeism rate. Absenteeism is one of the major evils haunting SAPS. We will monitor and ensure improvement by SAPS in this regard.

~ station service charters. As part of Batho Pele stations should have service charters.

(b) Victim Support Centres

Currently there are three operating centres in the province, namely Uncedo Victim Support Centre in Port Elizabeth, Mdantsane Victim Care 
Centre in East London and Umtata Family Centre in Umtata. Provision of services at these centres will be monitored. Lack of funding has 
hampered the running of the Suicide Prevention Project. Should the European Union, from which funds for the project have been requested, 
avail funds, this will also be monitored.

(c) Infrastructural Development

Construction at Butterworth and hopefully Port St Johns police stations is the main activity for this year. A cloud of uncertainly is 
hanging over the Centane Community Safety Centre whose Business Plan was approved as early as 1996 by the province. National has not been 
forthcoming as to when construction is to commence.

(d) HIV/Aids

There is no funding that has been set aside for HIV/Aids due to budgetary constraints. We will, however, do the best we can to mobilise 
communities, CPFs , SAPS structures as well as the SAPS budget to play a meaningful role in the war against HIV/Aids. In a nutshell we 
will be engaged in the HIV/Aids campaign by way of personnel and logistical support.

CONCLUSION

As indicated earlier we are in the process of reviewing our organogram with a view to enhance service delivery and move our service 
delivery points closer to where the people live. We are optimistic Treasury will accede to our humble and reasonable requests. With your 
practical support here in this legislature and in your constituencies we can make a meaningful contribution to crime prevention.

We are confident that when we stand here next year this time we will be telling you a different story. We have never been more optimistic.

We are on course

I thank you.

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