Single police service an excuse to centralise power
The DA will fight any attempts by government to give effect to the ANC's renewed call for a so-called ‘single police service'.
At its policy conference last week, the ANC confirmed their support for the absorption of municipal police services into the South African Police Service (SAPS). Should this proposal be included in the draft White Paper on Safety and Security expected to be tabled in Parliament later this year, we will oppose it.
The ANC claim that it is a ‘constitutional imperative that there be a Single Police Service'. This argument was also used when they disbanded the Scorpions. They have cited section 199(1) of the Constitution, which states that:
"The security services of the Republic consist of a single defence force, a single police service and any intelligence services established in terms of the Constitution."
In an attempt to further centralise power and limit the competencies of local governments, the ANC conveniently ignores section 206(7) of the Constitution, which allows for the establishment of metropolitan police services.
Some of the arguments for the absorption of the metro police into the SAPS are the lack of accountability of metro police as well as the need for better crime fighting responses. Functional metro police services such as in Cape Town, where the DA governs, show that they are perfectly capable of being effective and accountable. In Cape Town, metro police in conjunction with business and other stakeholders have brought down crime in the CBD by 90%.
Indeed, absorbing metro police services into the SAPS bureaucracy will only mire them in the same organisational inefficiency and chaos from which the SAPS suffers. This will destroy the crime fighting ability of the metro police.
The DA opposes this move to centralise power on the following grounds:
- It is a regressive move in terms of fighting crime - it will likely lead to more crime, with fewer arrests.
- The Constitution allows for separate municipal police services in section 206(7) and so it is not a ‘constitutional imperative' that a single police service means incorporating municipal police services into the SAPS.
- The metro police are paid for by ratepayers living in the metros, not by taxpayers. Absorption of the metro police will cause both administrative and financial problems.
- The metro police, not the SAPS, focus on enforcing municipal by-laws. Effective implementation of the by-laws is likely to suffer from the proposed merger.
- The envisaged incorporation will make policing less responsive to the needs of citizens at a local level.
- This is an attempt to centralise services which work effectively in areas that are well governed. The weak performance of some metro councils should not be used as an excuse to limit local government competencies.
We will thus be opposing any attempt to absorb local municipal police services into the SAPS, whether this be through changes suggested by the Draft White Paper on Safety and Security when it is tabled in Parliament, or through any other means.
Government must first prove that it can run an effective police service before it even begins discussing absorbing effective local government police forces.
Statement issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard MP, DA Shadow Minister of Police, July 3 2012
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