Police battle to follow Farlam recommendations

FIVE years after Marikana‚ the police are still struggling to tick off items on the to-do list of recommendations made by the Farlam Commission to overhaul the way crowds and protests are managed and policed.

The Farlam Commission made a long list of recommendations to ensure that police were properly trained and managed in instances of public violence to ensure that the mistakes made at Marikana were never repeated.

The panel of experts set up to investigate and overhaul public order policing and the transformation task team appeared before the police portfolio committee yesterday.

MPs expressed concern about the long period of time it has taken to implement the Farlam Commission’s recommendations.

Chairmain Francois Beukman questioned why quick wins, like first aid training for all officers, had not been made a priority. The Farlam Commission recommended that all police officers be trained in basic first aid.

But deputy national commissioner for human resource management‚ Bonang Mgwenya‚ said first aid training was informed by the budget.

Only 270 officers are set to be trained in first aid levels one and two in this financial year and fewer than 1 000 were trained in first aid levels one to three in the previous year.

Mgwenya admitted that 270 was not enough but said the number did not include new recruits who underwent first aid training in their basic training.

Public order policing also needed equipment valued at more than R200-million.

This included 25 second-generation Nyalas valued at R3-million each‚ 14 prisoner trucks‚ body protection gear, megaphones‚ video cameras and two-way radios. –