Community Policing Indaba in Mmabatho Civic Centre
MEC MORWENG ADDRESSES COMMUNITY POLICING INDABA
Mahikeng- Crime is a societal matter and requires all role players to play their part in creating a functional society with low levels of crime. This is a notion that took prominence at the Community Policing Indaba in Mahikeng .
The MEC for Community Safety and Transport Management, Wessels Morweng while addressing the multitude assembled at Indaba, emphasised the support required to assist the police and community based structures to fight crime.
“The values our forebears legacy to us is that as we say in Setswana letsema le kgonwa ka go tshwaraganelwa. We shall not and we will never defeat crime unless and until we begin to work together and report any kind of wrong doing to law enforcement. This country has laws and all of us are subjected to obeying those laws.
“One anomaly that needs to be corrected is that crime fighting is the responsibility of one or two entities. Crime is a collective responsibility of all us. Let me illustrate; trauma counselling of a crime victim is the responsivity of the Social Development and not of Community Safety and Transport Management or the police,” said MEC who encouraged the Indaba to prioritise a community involvement approach as an advanced way of dealing with crime.
Recently, the MEC tabled plans to ensure the necessary support to capacitate Community Policing Forums (CPF).
“What we are doing here today follows a directive from the President that CPF must be strengthened as an added arm to fight crime. The CPF strategy was drafted as well as Rural Safety Strategy. When presenting the 2024/2025 Budget Speech two and half weeks ago, I had indicated that as the Department we have implemented a number of campaigns in the past financial year to address issues related to the prevention of Gender Based Violence (GBV).
“For CPFs to be effective, we require support of our municipalities. We have to start educating our communities on the role of the CPF and how they, as ordinary citizens can play a role in reporting crime,” MEC Morweng added.
The Community Policing Indaba will chart a new set of ideas on the overall promotion of accountability of the service to local communities.
“This Indaba is not done in futility, we develop plans and strategies, including identifying areas of priority under the premise of the fundamental pillars which are; public education, building community resilience to crime, multi disciplinary collaboration, community policing and public order, communication and marketing as well as capacity, capability and resourcing of CPFs.
“In our efforts to fight crime it is also important to solidify crime prevention programmes to demotivate people from criminality in all its forms,” said the Deputy Provincial Commissioner, Maj Gen Gopolang Patrick Asaneng who provided an overview presentation on Community Policing as an Overarching Integrated Crime Prevention Policy, Rural Safety Strategy and Traditional Policing Concept.
The Indaba is scheduled to take place over a period of two days, where commissions will deliberate on the pillars of the community policing strategy. This includes the signing of a pledge of support by different stakeholders. The event was also graced by the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Roads, Community Safety and Transport Management, Freddy Sonakile, the Chairperson of the North West House of Traditional and Khoi- San Leaders, Kgosi Thari Maotwe, the Provincial Chairperson of the CPFs, Robert Malungane and Mmakgosi Seatlholo from the Moral Regeneration Movement who all made meaningful contributions to the programme.
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