Thapelo Sakoana
10 October 2006
The government and the business community have agreed on the need to increase South Africa's crime fighting capacity by providing specialist training to all police officers.
"We all agreed that there are certain weaknesses and we are looking at capacity building and skills retention to ensure that it is possible for us to combat crime," Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said in Pretoria last Wednesday.
Nqakula was speaking after a meeting of senior government officials and the Big Business Working Group, representing Business Against Crime and Business Leadership South Africa.
This followed a meeting between President Thabo Mbeki and the Big Business Working Group in Cape Town in August, which resolved to strengthen partnerships against crime in the country.
"Important decisions were taken to deal with the current crime wave, and to set in motion a series of interventions in the management and implementation of policing, justice and correctional services," Business Against Crime said in a statement after last week's meeting.
Nqakula said the outcomes of the meeting would include measures to ensure that South Africa's police are multi-skilled, in a bid to guarantee quick responses to crimes.
"What we want to instil is a process where every police official is able to fight every type of crime and to deal with complaints as they come, so that those at a local police station don't have to wait for specialists from elsewhere," the minister said.
Another measure put forward at the meeting was to bring retired experts, including retired magistrates, police detectives and judges, back into the criminal justice system.
Michael Spicer, chief executive of Business Leadership South Africa, said the meeting took a resolution to conduct an immediate review of the country's criminal justice system, to ensure speedy and successful prosecution of cases before the courts.
Government and business are expected to second senior officials to this initiative on a full-time basis, he said.
Spicer said it was also agreed to establish a Leadership Forum to meet twice a month to identify and mobilise "step change" interventions to turn around the crime situation in the country.
"The performance-driven forum will pool the strategic and leadership resources of business and government towards a common goal," Spicer said, and provide quarterly updates on its progress.
Spicer said all initiatives agreed upon at the meeting would be "planned in greater detail" over the next month, with priorities for immediate attention including:
- An immediate review of the criminal justice system.
- A review of current crime combating initiatives undertaken by government departments.
- Enhancement of the capacity of the government to deal with crime challenges.
SouthAfrica.info reporter and BuaNews
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