STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS 2004
Govt to improve public safety
David Masango
21 May 2004
The government plans to have 152 000 police officers on active duty by 2006 to improve the safety and security of all South Africans, says President Thabo Mbeki.
Delivering his State of the Nation Address in Parliament on Friday, Mbeki said the process of recruiting and skilling law enforcement and security agencies was already under way.
Mbeki added that during the current financial year, the government would establish at least two community courts in each province.
These will be modelled along the Hatfield Community Court in the City of Tshwane, which finalised 200 cases with a 100 percent conviction rate in its first months of operation .
"In the next three months we will set up special joint teams to target serious crimes, with an immediate objective of apprehending the top 200 criminals in the country, using all legal instruments to bring them to justice", Mbeki added.
Within the next two months, Cabinet will also
finalise the Victim's Charter, and by the end of the year commence with the implementation of a Victim Support Services Programme "so as to attend urgently to the needs of the victims of crime".
Mbeki said that during this financial year, the programme to set up specialised courts, including those dealing with commercial crimes and women and child abuse, would be intensified, along with the process of transforming the judicial system.
"Combined with these security activities, we will enhance the integration between the security and social clusters to deal with the social roots of many crimes, starting off in the nodes identified for rural and urban renewal", Mbeki said.
Source: BuaNews
| 
