Cape Town - Parliament's police portfolio committee will this week hold public hearings on the current rural safety strategy of the South African Police Service (SAPS), committee chairman Francois Beukman said on Sunday.
It was critical to evaluate the current rural safety strategy of the SAPS to determine whether more resources should be allocated to priority stations, he said in a statement.
The implementation of the SAPS rural safety strategy at the rural and semi-rural stations would also be evaluated at Wednesday's hearings.
Communities in rural and deep rural areas should be the eyes and ears of the law enforcement agencies to ensure that violent and contact crime was brought down, he said.
Some of the organisations invited to make inputs to the committee included the African Farmers' Association of South Africa (Afasa), Agri-SA, the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco), and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
"The maximum participation of civil society and organised labour is vital to ensure a vibrant and effective rural safety strategy," Beukman said.
The involvement and problems of communities in community police forums (CPFs) and safety forums would also be discussed. Beukman said the committee would use the 2017/18 crime statistics as a guide in evaluating the performance of rural and semi-rural police stations.