Mount Road centre a model for SA
OPERATIONAL command centres for police should be expanded across the country, with the Mount Road pilot project used as an example.
This is according to Deputy Police Minister Bongani Mkongi, who was speaking at the official hand-over of the Mount Road Cluster Operational Command Centre (OCC) in Port Elizabeth yesterday.
The OCC concept, part of the police’s Back to Basics campaign, is that they are manned by staff and senior officers who can oversee all response and crime prevention vehicles 24 hours a day.
Mkongi said other centres had already been established in the Western Cape and Gauteng.
He said the OCC had been a success in the city, but it needed similar coordination from police clusters around the country to fight crime if it was expanded.
The OCC, set up in October, was to sustain operations like Operation Lock Down, which was focused on winning back the trust of the community while clamping down on gangrelated activities.
“I feel exuberant about the success of the OCC and I will [mention this to] the minister.
“If we are to roll out this operation at a national level we must use this as an example,” he said.
According to police statistics, from April 1 last year to the end of last month, the Mount Road OCC made 1 457 arrests and confiscated 156 firearms.
Statistics from the provincial gang unit show that 456 arrests were made in the same period, with 46 convictions.
National management intervention chief Lieutenant-General Gary Kruser said the OCC was not just focused on gang-related crimes, but placed emphasis on all priority crimes.
Would the centre assist in combating ongoing gang-related crimes?
He said: “We are confident of what we have put in place . . . we have accountability on a minute-to-minute basis of all police officers and commitment from all members.”