SAPS’ top brass hand out contact details to community members

At the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) roundtable on empowerment and the rights of women, children and the elderly yesterday in Parliament, General Khehla John Sithole, Deputy National Commissioner of Policing Operations, told MPs that the police top brass were taking steps to improve policing in the country.

Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, Thandi Memela noted that “the problem isn’t at the top, the rot is at the bottom, at the station level. There is a serious problem in SAPS”.

“I acknowledge there are a lot of problems with police at the police station level and we are working hard to improve that”, said General Sithole.

He explained that SAPS has developed a complaints management strategy that will see the station and cluster commanders take personal responsibility to get directly in touch with a victim of crime or their family members that have not received the required attention from an officer.

General Sithole added that if people were unsatisfied with how they had been treated by police, complaints would now be escalated to national level where an investigator would be appointed for each case. The investigator would then present a report with recommendations, and if necessary, the officer in question would face disciplinary action.

He went on to say that SAPS’ top brass are in the middle of hosting a series of imbizos in nine communities around that country. The imbizos include community outreach programmes led by police, with ministers involved, that include announcements made to the community about “who we are and what our numbers are”, said Sithole.

“After providing our contacts to the community and explaining the chain of command, I have personally received a number of calls. One call was from community member, a single mother in Khutsong in Gauteng, about an illegal tavern.”

Chair of the Select Committee on Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Bertha Mabe, proposed that, if it was possible, complaints about police should be referred to Parliament as the extra oversight could be helpful in bringing about accountability and improved policing generally.