Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, has announced a “stabilisation invention plan” to put an end to serious and violent crimes, particularly aggravated robberies.
Briefing the media in Pretoria on Monday, the Minister said South Africa has recently been plagued with serious and violent crimes which has instilled fear in innocent, vulnerable and law-abiding citizens.
Last week saw a number of cash-in-transit heists as well as car hi-jackings. In KwaZulu-Natal, a nine-year-old girl was shot and killed after the vehicle she was travelling in was hijacked.
“I have directed the SAPS top management to adopt an extraordinary operational approach to stabilise this crime wave, which must be followed by a normalisation approach. Therefore, in our efforts to stamping the authority of the State, we will be introducing the execution of a high-density stabilisation intervention going forward.”
He said in provinces such as Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape – which provinces are most affected by this crime wave – the SAPS will be boosted by the deployment of Lieutenant Generals.
“We will also be mobilising all Police (functional) members that are ordinarily tasked with administration duties to augment the visibility of police officers, particularly in identified hotspot areas in all provinces.
“Our intention is to combat crimes, among others, cash-in-transit heists, car hi-jacking, murders, house robberies, gang violence and related crimes, taxi violence and related crimes,” said Cele.
Also, teams will be dedicated to tracking and arresting wanted suspects as part of the Organised Crime Threat Analysis (OCTA) approach.
“In order to ensure a sustainable stabilisation of crime, we realised that we would also need to ensure a downward management of “red dockets” (cold cases). In this, dedicated detectives will be working around the clock to gather information and evidence to identify those responsible for committing serious and violent crimes. This will be a 24-hour multi-disciplinary activation plan dubbed “Squeezing the space for criminals through an offensive approach,” he said.
The police remains committed to ensuring that people in South Africa are and feel safe.
“Moving forward, we will ensure high density visibility of uniformed police officers on foot and vehicles, supported by the SAPS air wing, continuous cordon and search operations, continuous roadblocks and relentless search for wanted suspects.”
He called on the community to be the “eyes and ears” of the police by providing information on criminal activities preferably before they happen. Information can be provided to the local police station or to the Crime Stop number 086 00 10111.