SAPS sets its sights on a new task team on the anniversary of massacre

PRETORIA: On the fourth anniversary of the Marikana massacre, Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko has set up a task team to review public order policing as recommended by the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the 2012 shootings.

In its report released by President Jacob Zuma in June last year, the commission recommended that a panel be established to review public order policing and analyse international best practice.

Nhleko, launching the task team at the SAPS Academy in Pretoria West, said the ministry was instructed to review and evaluate policing on public protests and benchmark international best practices to improve policing.

Today marks the fourth year since 34 mineworkers were massacred by police during a deadly protest at a Lonmin mine.

The Farlam Commission recommended that the SAPS look into its public order policing unit and ability to properly deal with demonstrations.

Nhleko said the issue was among many that would be dealt with by the task team, including the question of deployment of legal lethal weapons as well as communication. “The commission specifically identified some of those issues,” he said.

The minister said they did not want to witness another Andries Tatane, referring to the Ficksburg service delivery protester who was shot dead by police in the Free State, or a repeat of Marikana, hence the inauguration of the task team.

“The task team is being led by the Farlam Commission findings. We must closely take note that the commission did not recommend a change on policing, it merely suggested a review,” he said.

“This means we have been tasked to investigate and analyse what had gone wrong and come up with our own remedial advice to the ministry.”

Nhleko said the mandate of the task team was applicable to the National Development Plan’s vision of professionalising and demilitarising the SAPS.

“We have been given a mandate to ensure that the SAPS is a professional, demilitarised service that is aimed at conducting policing in an integrated manner while working together with our communities,” he said.

He also spoke at length about how the team would look at standing orders, as well as command and control issues.

Deputy Police Minister Maggie Sotyu will be the overseer of both the panel of experts and transformation task team. Sotyu will, in turn, provide quarterly reports to the minister.

The nine-member task team is scheduled to report to Nhleko once a month on its progress as well as challenges.

It is chaired by the Reverend Dr Vukile Charles Mehana and includes members of the South African Police Union and Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union.

The team will provide monthly written and oral progress reports to Sotyu and the national commissioner of police, said Nhleko.