Marabastad business owners and residents are fed up with improper police conduct in the area.
The business owners and residents attended a community imbizo hosted by the Pretoria Central SAPS on May 15, where they complained that police ask them for bribes, of not having sufficient processes to report crimes and mistreatment by police.
“The whole complex can be closed for one guy that did something wrong. They’ll close this side and the other side and when you ask them why are you doing these things, it’s interference with a police officer and you can get assaulted or arrested,” said Mike Nguna, one of the businessmen.
Nguna said the new police vans around Marabastad are used to solicit bribes from vendors and that “your freedom depends on how much money you have”.
He also said vendors are regularly harassed by individuals claiming to be police but have little evidence to back that aside from a reflector vest and a bad attitude.
“Can’t they come with their uniform and their name tags instead of them coming looking like gangsters? Some guy with a gun with a vest written police somewhere small on it. Most of them are coming at us like that every day and they’re driving state vehicles,” Nguna said.
Businesswoman Raheema Ismali said that police make her feel like they’re living under Apartheid law.
“Why must we continuously justify that we’re South African citizens, isn’t our driver’s licenses that have our ID numbers good enough? It feels like we’re back in Apartheid and we have to carry a dompas around to keep the police from harassing us,” Ismali said.
Vincent Majali said he is regularly approached by traders who complain about having to pay thousands of rands in bribes to police.
“The police officers, we know them, we are living in Marabastad, we know central, Hammanskraal, we can see that no, this one is not working in central, he coming here to look for whatever,” Majali said.
Majali said his stock is also targeted by police for bribes.
“We take videos, we take everything, we go to the station and make a lot of noise. They’ll open a case and nothing will happen, even today, the investigating officer hasn’t called,” Majali said.
“The vehicles we use have registration numbers, whether it’s private or marked. The recent instruction issued by the District Commissioner states that no other police vehicles from anywhere else must come and do police work in Marabastad apart from the Pretoria Central vehicles,” station commander, Brigadier Gibin Hlengane Mashaba told the meeting.
“Colleagues, help me in this patrolling issue to stop the corrupt activities which my members are doing here in Marabastad. When they come and demand money from you, please and please and please again, get the registration number of that vehicle, check on the vehicle which station does that the car belongs to,” Mashaba said.
He encouraged the residents to open cases at the station instead of calling him or his subordinates, indicating that in this way, they would be able to assist them more effectively. He also assured residents that the matters they investigate are not swept under the carpet and are investigated until completion.
“I always ask for the main charge. Interfering with police duties can never be the main charge, there has to be something else whether it’s rape, assault, robbery, or whatever it is. Let there be a main charge and inference with the police would be secondary,” Mashaba said.
He said that the central CPF would be conducting meetings at least once a month with residents and requested that a Central police vehicle be stationed in Marabastad to assist vendors and clamp down on bribe seekers.
Mashaba didn’t lay the entire blame at the feet of his colleagues, but also called out the business owners for not following procedure.
“The problem is you sometimes. If you don’t have papers and don’t want to apply for the correct ones and you want to do things using shortcuts, it’s always going to be a problem. If I am a South African or foreign national with the right papers, there can’t be anyone demanding money from you,” Mashaba said.
He said most of the time the reflector-wearing bribe solicitors were reservists and most of whom have been dismissed.
Mashaba said he would ask the crime intelligence team to crack down on the practice.
Businessman Alex Senbata was grateful to police for the work they do.
“I also want to thank the station commander because it used to be worse. Police used to come shop to shop demanding papers for our workers and if you didn’t have them, they wrote a statement and you could be sent to court. When we contacted the station commander, it came to an end, if that thing escalated in Marabastad, it was going to be chaos. I hope this meeting will yield good results,” Senbata said.
The stakeholders are looking forward to holding a similar engagement for the start of the festive season as that is a time locals say is rife with robberies.
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