Parly calls cop station chiefs to account

Parliament’s police portfolio committee has called the South African Police Service (Saps) station commanders of the five police stations in South Africa with the highest incidents of violent crime to account.

In a statement yesterday, committee chairperson Francois Beukman said it was critical for violent crime to be addressed as the number one priority of the Saps.

The committee decided that the station commanders of Hillbrow, Johannesburg Central, Kagiso, Mitchells Plain and Nyanga should appear before the committee so that the current Saps strategy on combatting contact crime could be evaluated, he said.

“Murder, attempted murder, robbery, and rape are the crimes that affect the safety of communities and the necessary strategic and operational measures should be taken to intervene in the top five crime stations.”

The committee had always emphasised that the Saps needed to act proactively to ensure that police stations had the necessary resources to deal with the crime profile in the five precincts.

The civilian secretariat of police had also been invited to brief the committee on the root causes contributing to the high crime rate in the affected areas.

“Dealing effectively with the root causes of contact crime is not only a police matter, but involves other spheres of government and civil society,” Beukman said.