MEC establish Gauteng Law Enforcement Agencies Forum
JOBURG - Having noted problematic crimes as recorded in the 2014/15 financial year, the Gauteng Department of Community Safety, along with all its law enforcement agencies, has introduced measures aimed at turning the situation around.
MEC for Community Safety Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane revealed that the interventions included fostering co-ordination among all law enforcement agencies in the province through the establishment of the Gauteng Law Enforcement Agencies Forum.
Nkosi-Malobane said, “The establishment of this structure will assist in identifying some of the challenges that were hampering policing, such as inadequate radio communication integration amongst the agencies. These issues and more are receiving the necessary attention, and already the results are showing.”
The MEC stated that the facilitation of joint planning between law enforcement agencies to deal with crimes will improve the quality of policing. She said the forum will soon develop crime-specific strategies which include what she dubbed ‘trio crimes’ – contact crimes, illicit mining and public protest march issues.
“These strategies are aimed at tackling some of the crimes that recorded increases in the previous financial year. The Take Charge and Know your Neighbourhood Campaigns remain key initiatives to community mobilisation,” Nkosi-Malobane stated.
She also said that community safety structures were central in ensuring the campaigns find resonance in communities and also become the driving force in mobilising citizens to take charge of their safety.
The MEC said that since the inception of the community safety campaigns in 2007, these sectors have directly interacted with over 1 000 000 people across the province.
To ensure that the province effectively addresses the high crime rate, all law enforcement agencies should be held accountable for an increase in crime in the province, Nkosi- Malobane emphasised.
She said, “This has, for a very long time, been the responsibility that is only shouldered by police. All factors that might be hindering police co-ordination in the province should be tackled at all levels; and specific clusters that are struggling with crime levels should be assisted as a matter of urgency.”
The MEC also stated that the capacity in crime gathering intelligence should receive serious attention and that community involvement and the training of patrollers to gather intelligence needed to be strengthened as well.
However, the MEC admitted that they continued to experience challenges in the field of achieving safer communities in the province, but she was convinced that the policy framework they have put in place, Gauteng Safety Strategy, will ensure that province overcomes these challenges and Gauteng becomes a safe province.
