Pretoria - Newly-appointed Mpumalanga head of the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation (Hawks), Major-General Nicholas Jacobus Gerber, has his work cut out for him.
Gerber is the first white police officer to be installed as a provincial leader of the Hawks in Mpumalanga since the national establishment of the unit in 2008.
“I am here in Mpumalanga to add value by working together with Hawks members, members of the community, and the media in terms of the unit’s mandate to prevent, combat and investigate all national priority offences which may have threatened the safety of inhabitants of Mpumalanga,” said Gerber.
The new sheriff in town takes over from Major-General Zodwa Mokoena, who left the post last month.
Gerber said he that was aware of the challenges facing the unit, including shortages in human resources.
He committed to working with provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Semakaleng Daphney Manamela to crack difficult cases.
DA leader in Mpumalanga, Jane Sithole, said it did not matter what race the new Hawks head was, his performance in the post did.
“Mpumalanga is lacking in convictions. There is no doubt that without people being convicted for crimes that have allegedly been committed, we are not getting anywhere.
“Crimes get reported sometimes, with arrests being made, but the cases fail to reach conviction because the police have either bungled the evidence or did not collect the evidence properly,” she said.
Sithole said that there was a culture where suspects were allowed to return to the crime scene, where evidence was tampered with.
“Things like that delay the work of the police and the Hawks. At this stage, we hope that there will be a serious element in focusing on convictions.
“It really doesn’t matter who the head of Hawks is. As long as that person is focused on their mandate then there will be progress.
“If people are going to start seeing convictions on issues of corruption and issues of serious crimes relating to gender-based violence, hijacking and murder, public confidence will be restored,” she said.
The DA said that it wished Gerber the best because crime had become a thorny issue for Mpumalanga.
“We are hoping that the new head will prioritise cases reaching an end. If you look at our statistics you will see that in Mpumalanga many cases never reach a verdict, meaning that the arrests were useless,” Sithole said.
It is not the first time that a new Hawks head is appointed with high expectations.
In 2014, the Mpumalanga provincial government announced the appointment of a new Hawks head who would deal with unsolved political murder cases, such as that of Saul Shabangu, Hebron Maisela, Sydney de Lange, Thandi Mtsweni, Jimmy Mohlala and Sammy Mpatlanyane.
This followed the failure of the province’s organised crime unit to get to the bottom of the killings.
Some of the killings were subsequently named “January murders” because they took place in January.
In spite of the involvement of top cops from the national police office, none of the murders have been solved, none of the murders have been solved.
In November, Mkhondo Local Municipality ANC PR councillor Muzi Manyathi was gunned down in Piet Retief in what has been labelled a political killing.
Over the weekend, another ANC councillor, Sabelo Nhleko, was gunned down in Piet Retief.
Pretoria News