Cape Town - Annual general meetings allowing elections to take place in Community Police Forums were put on hold after disagreements were brought to light between the CPF cluster board and the Department of Community Safety.
CPFs across the province opposed the new guidelines and directives implemented by the department which was created to guide the election process within the forums.
The discontent has led to the province's Acting Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Sindile Mfazi instructing the CPFs not to proceed with their annual general meetings (AGMs).
Spokesperson for Mitchells Plain CPF cluster Aziza Kannemeyer said: “The department created their own guidelines without our input. There new guidelines completely disregards the current CPF constitution which we have been following for many years.”
Kannemeyer added that the CPF board wanted to go ahead with the AGMs but all the cluster CPF chairpersons had agreed to follow the CPF guidelines in the constitution.
“It’s almost as if the department wants to fully oversee the CPF’s by adding guidelines to the current constitution that will see to their needs more than the communities,” she said.
Spokesperson for Community Safety Minister Cayla Murray said: “The majority of CPFs (about 103 of 151) at police station level indicated a willingness to continue with the elections according to the CPF AGM directives.”
Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz said that the message sent to CPFs stating that the department was withdrawing its support of CPFs was untrue and an attempt to divide the department from CPFs at station level.
“Together, the CPF board and police were happy to engage with the department to make changes to the constitution, however, we (could) not accept them taking ‘ownership’ over it and persuading us to do it their way,” said Kannemeyer.
Kannemeyer added that the department’s guidelines were not inclusive with the civilian component and was causing a division between the Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) and CPF’s.
Murray said that there was no conflict between CPFs and NHW structures at most police stations.
“CPFs often do invite the NHW counterparts to CPF meetings and allow them to participate at the elective AGMs and halting all CPF AGMs because there is unhappiness at a minority of stations is unnecessary.”
She said the CPF elections and the AGMs were supposed to take place until the next month, and about 15% had completed their elections. “A further 70% have indicated that they are ready to continue with their elective AGMs and are awaiting authorisation to do so,” she said.
Kannemeyer said that the forums will continue assisting their communities until a proper solution was found.