THE minister of police was “shocked by the low level of policing and police visibility” at OR Tambo International Airport after his visit to the facility on Monday.
Minister Fikile Mbalula later said in a statement: “I shared this concern with our parliamentarians in Parliament that same day and assured them that appropriate steps will be taken to correct the situation.”
Mbalula met with the Minister of State Security, David Mahlobo, the executive mayor of Ekurhuleni, Clr Mzwandile Masina, the MEC of Community Safety, Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, top management of the police and the leadership of Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), which included the CEO of ACSA, Bongani Maseko, the general manager of OR Tambo, Bongiwe Pityi and ACSA’s group manager for security, Jason Tshabalala.
The meeting followed the recent spate of crimes at the airport, including follow-home incidents and heists.
Crimes referred to during the meeting included the R20-million armed robbery where criminals impersonated police officers; cash in transit heist where cash in transit was blown up with explosives on the R24; a hijacking and murder just outside the airport and the Swissport warehouse armed robbery.
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The minister highlighted that the situation was so bad that, on the very same morning of the visit, another heist took place at an airport gate where a group of heavily armed suspects hijacked a high-value cargo truck. Fortunately, security, the EMPD and policing authorities were able to intervene and save the cargo, but an undetermined number of suspects fled.
Mbalula said part of the challenge was corruption and collusion where police officers were in cahoots with criminals.
During a press conference, he said it was established there were a lot of corrupt staff and police officers who worked with criminals by supplying them with information or turning a blind eye.
Mbalula also complained there were a lot of staff who were avoiding the vetting process and had been doing so for a while. He did not understand why they were still kept as staff members.
“An obvious lack of police command and control is highly concerning and without it, the ability to effectively manage deployed personnel at the airport will remain a major challenge. There are further challenges with regards to the non-existence of tactical crime intelligence, Mbalula said.
“We need to revisit the steps put in place during the 2010 Soccer World Cup. There is a collective agreement that we need to explore the 2010 Soccer World Cup strategy which was both efficient and effective.”
He said all people that work at the airport need to be effectively vetted. On this basis, the meeting agreed that a more senior police officer with the rank of Major General needed to be deployed to the airport to lead its policing operation.
“We have been reassured by the Mayor Masina that more EMPD officers will be deployed to assist in curbing crime at OR Tambo International Airport.”
One of the steps to be taken is the joint deployment to the airport that will include crime intelligence, the Hawks and detectives. This team will operate out of an operations room where crime will be monitored on a daily basis and a report will be sent to the minister on a weekly basis.
Another meeting will be held on July 21 to come up with a masterplan for security with all government agencies within the security cluster.
Mahlobo explained during the press conference that suspects who were caught often benefited from the fact that the victim or witness was of a foreign nationality. Those witnesses or victims do not come back to South African to testify. He said the plan was to involve the justice department so trial and prosecution would be done rapidly in such cases.
Mbalula said: “We are going to clean out this place. We are going to combine efforts and we are going to vet every person of influence here. We have identified all the weaknesses and we noted corruption, collusion and inside jobs.”
He added there would be a process to ensure people who worked at the airport would no longer be working in the same place to such an extent that they became used to any section and its activities.
