Dianne Kohler Barnard disagrees with the ANC’s aim to integrate municipal, metro and traffic police into a centralised service.
Durban - Last week, eThekwini city manager Sibusiso Sithole was quoted in The Mercury as saying he “had no problem” with the integration and nationalisation of all police departments, including those from municipalities and the Road Traffic inspectorate into the SAPS as was suggested by Transport Minister Dipuo Peters.
Peters, speaking to the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), urged the union to take part in implementing a decision to merge the forces.
Nine years ago the ANC’s national executive council passed various resolutions which have provided us with frightening clarity on the current governing party’s priorities and goals.
The ANC passed a resolution to integrate all “municipal, metro and traffic police … under the command and control of the national commissioner of the South African Police Service, as a force multiplier”.
In addition, the resolutions state that “the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions) be dissolved” and that “the relevant legislative changes be effected as a matter of urgency to give effect to the foregoing resolution”.
What these resolutions tell us about the ANC is that public opinion and informed analysis count for nothing.
Ever since the ANC first suggested the possible integration of metro police and the dissolution of the Scorpions, it has been met with an outcry from experts and ordinary members of the public alike.
The function and location of the Scorpions was given lengthy consideration during the Khampepe Commission, which found that the Scorpions should remain under the National Prosecuting Authority.
There are also good reasons why the metro police should remain separate from the SAPS.
I will concentrate mainly on the metro police in this article.
The government and the SAPS have a history of making poorly thought-out and planned decisions that have had grave consequences for the rest of us.
The disbanding of many of the specialised units, such as the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences units and the Railway Police are just two examples.
Other examples include handing over border protection from the SANDF to the SAPS and the closure of the Commandos and the Narcotics Bureau.
Differences in training, experience, powers, areas of focus, skills, management and pay structures between the metro, municipal and traffic police and the SAPS are just some of the thorny issues which need careful planning and management. Empowering municipalities and communities to manage their own affairs is also seriously undermined, as the local ratepayers will no longer exercise any say over the ex-metro, traffic and municipal police.
The municipal manager says he wants people to become more involved in the fight against crime, and then promptly agrees to remove one of their critical means to do so.
The ANC want to have every law enforcement officer in the country who is armed report directly to the national commissioner, and thus be easier to control – yet another move towards centralisation of power.
The fact that this national commissioner is, herself, currently under investigation is one of the great ironies of the entire situation.
The disbanding of the globally admired Scorpions, replaced with the Hawks which has faced court challenge after court challenge, as attempts were made to ensure it a modicum of the independence the Scorpions had, has recently seen its head removed in one of the most blatantly political moves of the decade.
As for the second resolution, there is no justification at all to the claims that the metro police are not needed where they are.
They serve the critical functions of municipal and traffic law enforcement. They also allow local ratepayers to have a more direct say over local law enforcement activities through the ratepayers’ associations and local city councils.
Instead of empowering people and communities, the proposed move reduces local power and involvement. It takes policy away from the people.
By attempting to incorporate traffic, metro and municipal officers into the SAPS, the ANC hopes to increase the headcount of SAPS (they call this move a force multiplier) without appearing to understand that a “force” is only as good as the skills and abilities of its members.
All of these new people will have to undergo significant retraining and be fully equipped with the required vehicles, uniforms and weapons.
The senior members will also swell the already top-heavy SAPS management structure.
Quality – not quantity – wins the fight against crime, but here the ANC is clearly pushing for quantity … and control.
The excuse the ANC offers for the proposed redeployment of the metro police is that the constitution says there must be a “single” police service.
But the established interpretation of the words “single” does not recognise it to mean “only”. The Constitutional Court has already dealt with this claim at length.
The constitution allows for the existence of other “armed organisations or services” in terms of legislation.
The ANC’s refusal to respect this interpretation or section 199(3) of the constitution is a chilling taste of the party’s general disdain for Parliament and democratic processes.
With no one specifically mandated to focus on the “smaller” local and municipal laws, these will simply fall by the wayside.
Laws governing crimes such as littering, hawking with licences, health and safety, noise and conduct in public spaces will go unregulated.
What SAPS officer with 150 serious crime dockets on the desk will deal with municipal complaints?
Anyone who tries to argue that these types of laws are unimportant when compared to more serious criminal laws has not seriously considered the subject.
Quality of life in neighbourhoods will decline, sending a signal that these places are uncared for and unimportant.
The “broken windows” crime theory cannot solve crime on its own, but it carries a great deal of truth. For the municipal manager to blindly agree with this decision simply means he hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about.
* Dianne Kohler Barnard is the DA’s spokeswoman on police.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Mercury