Police vow to catch train arsonists

We cannot have one metro not functioning because it affects the economy, says commissioner Sitole

THE police have promised Parliament they will improve intelligence-gathering operations to crack down on the burning of trains in the country.

National Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Khehla Sitole and head of crime intelligence Anthony Jacobs told MPs yesterday they would arrest more people for the spate of torching of trains in the Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and other parts of the country.

Sitole also revealed to MPs that one person had been arrested for the burning of two trains in Cape Town on Tuesday, and more arrests would follow.

The promise by the police came after the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) told the portfolio committee on transport earlier in the week the burning of trains has cost them more than R663 million.

MPs warned that the continued torching of trains was costing Cape Town millions of rand a day.

They said this was economic sabotage, and that crime intelligence must intervene and nab the suspects behind this because it affected the country.

Sitole agreed and said they were using various police units to tackle the problem.

“On the train sabotage, by the nature of the crime it requires of us to have crime intelligence, the Hawks and the combat team. Our intention is the stabilisation of this environment. There is a task team working on this already.

“There is one suspect arrested yesterday (Tuesday). There is going to be a full-blown combat team. We have decided to increase the intelligence so that we can get to the root cause of this,” said Sitole.

Chairperson of the portfolio committee on police Francois Beukman said they would not allow a city not to function because of the economic sabotage.

He added that the burning of trains had a negative impact on the country’s economy.

Dianne Kohler Barnard of the DA said crime intelligence must fix the problems of drug dealing, train sabotage and political murders.

She said the era of former head of crime intelligence Richard Mdluli was over and the unit must get to the bottom of train burnings.

Sitole said crime intelligence would start performing optimally as they had taken steps to address some of the problems there.

Parliament has been warning about the burning of trains as a serious crime that affected the economy, and the committee said yesterday it hoped that crime intelligence would be able to find those behind the attacks.

Prasa has been battling train burnings for some time now, and it complained in Parliament that the bill to repair or replace the trains was huge.

MPs warned that the continued torching of trains was draining the economy and they want the police to clamp down on those behind this scourge.

Beukman said they would not allow criminals to hold the country hostage by burning trains.

He said appropriate action was needed by the police to fight the problem as this would stabilise the economy.

“On the train sabotage, we can’t have one metro not functioning, because it affects the economy,” said Beukman after the latest train burning in Cape Town.

Sitole said they would jack up their systems in crime intelligence and ensure the unit was functioning optimally.

However, MPs said they were concerned about the low detection rate in the SAPS to fight crime.

Jerome Maake of the ANC said it did not make sense that the police’s detection rate was sitting at 14%, and this would make it difficult to reduce crime levels in the country.

MPs said it was unacceptable that there was rampant crime in the country, with more than 20000 murders, rapes of women and children, and violent crime.

Sitole said the police were working on a plan to ensure the numbers were brought down, and to improve the detection rate.

When he presented the crime statistics in Parliament last month, Police Minister Bheki Cele said they wanted to improve on these numbers.

He said they wanted to reduce crime to low levels.