By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
National Police Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, says the South African Police Service (SAPS) safer festive season operations, which are already in full swing, are characterized by heightened crime awareness campaigns, foot, vehicle and air-support patrols, stop and searches, arrests, vehicle checkpoints and roadblocks.
Masemola said “maximum resources” had already been deployed to assert the authority of the State to regain public confidence, and ensure that people across South Africa are and feel safe and secure.
He was briefing media at a festive season operations briefing on Friday, where he outlined six focus areas of priority.
All provinces, Masemola said, are conducting operations in line with the National Policing Strategy.
“Our six focus areas include intensifying our campaigns and police actions towards addressing gender-based violence and femicide, as we continue to embark on the tracking and tracing of wanted suspects.
“As an organisation, we remain committed to ensuring the safety of women, children and vulnerable groups, not only during this 16 Days [of Activism for no Violence against Women and Children] period but throughout the year,” said Masemola.
The second focus area concentrates on intensifying efforts to combat aggravated robberies such as cash-in-transit (CIT) heists, ATM bombings, carjacking, and robberies at residential and business premises.
“We all know that this period is characterised by an abundance of cash and influx of people at shopping centres and malls. This is the time where people share money and their hard earned savings, but it is also a period where criminals pounce on these unsuspecting victims to rob them off their belongings.
“Our third focus area is on enhancing border security, as we know that this is a period where we witness an influx of people utilising our borders to enter or exit the country. We have been intensifying our search operations at the borders where we are focusing on preventing and combatting human and drug trafficking, as well as illegal crossings,” said Masemola.
The fourth focus area looks into the enforcement of legislation to decisively address the proliferation of illegal firearms, second hand goods, liquor enforcement, as well as the enforcement of the Safety at Sports and Recreational Events (SASREA) Act.
Masemola said compliance inspections at establishments that sell liquor, including taverns, shebeens and night clubs are being intensified to ensure compliance with relevant legislation, including the trading hours.
“The fifth area focuses on the enforcement of by-laws targeting hijacked buildings, destruction of essential infrastructure, extortion as well as unlawful sale and use of fire crackers.
“The sixth focus area looks into road safety where we are jointly conducting roadblocks and vehicle checkpoints, together with the metro police departments, as well as provincial and national traffic police,”he said.
He said SAPS has been hard at work in consistently developing and reviewing interventions in response to the analysis of crime patterns and emerging crime trends in the country.
Masemola also announced the appointment of Lieutenant General Edith Mavundla as the new Divisional Commissioner for Technology Management Service and Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo as the Divisional Commissioner for Crime Intelligence.
Mavundla and Khumalo, whose appointments are effective from 1 December 2022, both have extensive experience in the SAPS. Also SAPS will be welcoming 9 248 of 10 000 newly trained police officers within its ranks next week, after they successfully completed the nine-month Basic Police Learning Development Programme.