City will fight to keep Metro Police out of SAPS

19 August 2015

The announcement in the media today of the ANC’s intention to drive home a ‘single police service’ in spite of the broad opposition to and public opinion around this matter does not bode well for South Africans. It will set back policing significantly and deprive the public of an alternative when the primary police service fails to address their complaints and challenges.

It is also proof of the fact that this remains primarily a political move and that the desire to seize control of the Metro Police services around South Africa was born from and is driven by a party political agenda and not the broad public interest.

The White Paper on Safety and Security admits numerous problems and proposes a variety of solutions that the City welcomes, including the improvement of policing discipline and ethics, the modernisation of policing, the introduction of specialisation (specialised units to tackle gang violence and drug crime are something the Western Cape Government and City of Cape Town have been calling for, for a long time) and the demilitarisation of the police (a system that we opposed when it was introduced).

However, the single police service is not among these improvements and would not serve to improve policing, but would simply centralise control and disempower Metro Police. 

I can only speak for the Cape Town Metropolitan Police Department (CTMPD). The key problems here are quite fundamental, starting with the intention of the White paper to strip Metro Police of their crime prevention function and to limit them to traffic and by-law enforcement. This is not what the public want; in fact, this is not what the ANC’s own political leadership in the City advocate in their weekly demands that the City do more about serious crime and gangsterism.

Communities across Cape Town who face the scourge of gangsterism put a great deal of pressure on the City to use the 3% of the policing resources in its control (the other 97% being in the hands of the National Government) to fight gangsterism and drugs. This White Paper will make this impossible.

Furthermore, the provisions of the White Paper conflict with the powers of local government as outlined in the Constitution, labour legislation and the collective agreements with the unions. The document is unclear on the role and powers of the proposed ‘Divisional Commissioner for Municipal and Traffic Police’ but what is clear is that the National Government is exceeding the limits of its powers. Subjugating Metro Police under the control of SAPS or to incorporate Metro Police into SAPS would be unconstitutional and would be met with legal action by the City and the Western Cape Government.

This proposed centralisation and subordination to the National Government will make Metro Police less responsive to communities and the City will not have the flexibility to address local community complaints. Communities and Community Policing Forums will not be able to hold Metro Police or the political heads accountable as they can now.

We will also witness poorer training and more corruption. The assumptions made by the White Paper are inaccurate and the arguments based on these assumptions are therefore also fallacious. Centralising the police will not lead to better training and coordination – in fact it would reduce the quality of training being enjoyed by Metro Police. Coordination within SAPS is also certainly nothing to aspire to and an excellent working relationship exists between the SAPS and CTMPD at station level.

Corruption levels and bribery in CTMPD are significantly lower than other Metro Police Departments and lower than in SAPS. The White Paper will remove the ability of the City to hold staff accountable and ensure discipline. South Africa is in need of a multiplicity of anti-corruption agencies which can provide checks and balances and a systemic resilience against interference. Metro Police needs greater autonomy, not less.

There are other serious shortcomings in the White Paper that undermine the efforts by communities to protect themselves – specifically the lack of attention to the reservist policy and the needs of neighbourhood watch organisations.

Specialised policing is necessary in order to properly tackle specialised forms of crime. However, more than just specialised training and skills are needed. The National Development Plan proposes the re-establishment of specialised units, while the White Paper only mentions the need for specialised training for public order policing and gender-based violence in its proposals for specialised policing. Specialised police units with dedicated resources and which are prosecution-driven must be established for specialised crimes such as drugs, gangs, poaching, rural safety, etc.

All of the above is placed in simple perspective by the recent roll-out of the City’s Stabilisation Unit and their current pilot deployment in Manenberg. With very limited resources, they have succeeded in almost completely halting the gang violence that had been raging there for months. This will not happen under a single police service which will leave the residents at the mercy of the National Government who has demonstrated their failure to ensure proper policing during the last two decades.

The proposed legislation does not intend to serve the public – it serves the ANC ruling hegemony and their desire to control every aspect of the criminal justice system. It serves the gang bosses and criminals and it destroys the innovation and alternative options that CTMPD has driven and which the public demand.

Statement issued by Alderman JP Smith, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, City of Cape Town, August 19 2015