SAPU Northern Cape Calls On Saps To Partner With All And Not Just Some In The Community To Fight Crime

The South African Policing Union in the Northern Cape is concerned about SAPS electing to collaborate with some but not all community members across all demographics in the Province to fight crime and social injustice.

As SAPU we have never expressed any qualms with SAPS about building a crime-fighting partnership with any community groups, even those that were labelled vigilante groups such as the so-called “Wanya-Tsotsi” in Kimberley.

SAPU picked up in the newspaper (DFA-Friday, February 2023 page 4) the refusal by SAPS to allow its retired Detective, Lieutenant Colonel Dolf Lourens to offer his crime detection expertise in a two-day course to the Detectives in Northern Cape. SAPS resorted to conventional red tape by responding to his offer by saying that: “to become a service provider in terms of training in the SAPS you have to be an accredited service provider”. In a telephonic interview with SAPU, Lieutenant Colonel Lourens expressed that he was asking for a mere R1500 per day for a two-day course.

There are critical issues such as social collaborating and eradication of gender-based discrimination, to name a few, which SAPU is currently addressing with SAPS management at the Provincial Consultative Forum. We have agreed to task Access Chapter 2, a human rights organisation to offer workshops to police officials about LGBTQI+ issues without further delay, and have also agreed to review the current psychometric tests to cater for all demographics. If unnecessary red tape about accreditation of trainers and training is going to delay the progress of training the police about for instance gender-based discrimination, or about successful crime detection, then the war against

gender-based violence and crime in general will never be won.

SAPU is therefore calling on SAPS management to collaborate with all, and not only some of the community members to fight crime and social injustice. The silence of SAPS over the offer by Lieutenant Colonel Lourens to offer workshop on how to successfully detect crime is seen by SAPU as hypocrisy, and SAPU is encouraging SAPS to revisit its stance on the matter. The offer of expertise is as much an opportunity to the SAPS to grab, as it is with “Wanya-Tsotsi” offering to detect crime and apprehend suspects to hand over to the police without having any ounce of police training. SAPU submits that there is no need of accreditation for both, the best interests of the South African Citizens should be paramount, and not those of some individuals.

Issued by: SAPU

Provincial Spokesperson: Mr. Blessing Tselane

Provincial Secretary: SAPU Northern Cape