Budget Vote speech tabled by Mr Ratshivhanda Samson Ndou, Limpopo MEC for Safety, Security and Liaison in the Limpopo Provincial Legislature

Honourable Speaker
Honourable Premier Sello Moloto
Members of the Executive Council
Distinguished colleagues in the Legislature
Portfolio Committee on Safety, Security and Liaison
Esteemed Traditional leaders present
Provincial Commissioner Sengani and South African Police Services (SAPS) Management
The Provincial Community Policy Forums (CPFs) Board
Leaders of religious organisation and churches
Stalwarts and veterans of our struggle
Members of the media
Distinguish quests
Ladies and gentlemen

When I joined this Department a year ago I took a conscious decision to visit our police stations throughout the province before I extended my visit to traditional leaders, farmers, business and religious formations. The main objective for this was to familiarise myself with the working conditions of the police.

My visit to the stations was an eye opener. I gained first hand information concerning our police stations and the conditions under which members of the SAPS work. Although the majority of the police stations in the province are in a fairly good condition and reasonably well resourced, I must mention that others are poorly resourced and need urgent attention. In some instances accommodation for members and their personal needs are still a challenge.

At that time I did not invite the media to accompany me as I viewed the visits as an in house exercise to gather information that will enhance service delivery.

During these interactions I also discovered that in the past most of the police stations in the province were located strategically to serve the interests of the minority. The state of some of these police stations, their structural design and their locations need to be corrected as they perpetuate the legacy of apartheid. Stations such as Tuinplaas, Roedtan, Zebediela, Bandelierkop, Letsitele, Levubu and many others were established with the intention of protecting the interest of the few.

As a result of this situation our communities continue to be disadvantaged in terms of safety and security and deprived of effective service delivery.

I am compelled to recall the words of one of Africa's greatest son Samora Machel when he said, "We think we can understand reality in our sectors merely by way of official documents, minutes, reports and memorandums in other words we stay immured in our offices in a sea of papers so we lose a sense of urgency, we lose a sense of the important, we all talk in meetings about co-ordination, interaction and interdependence but we do not make the systematic effort required to co-ordinate, we said that ministers must meet to find a joint solution to common problems. But this is not done, the problems go on being settled in isolation, remain unsettled. We said that national ministers must travel in groups to the provinces to deal with specific problems there: We said that provincial directors must as a group travel regularly into districts to understand the local reality and settle problems. But this is not done either."

What the late President Machel is saying is that people attend meetings that have no significance to the community and service delivery. Sometimes people are more concerned about their performance profile. In other words our meetings should be fruitful and beneficial to our people. These activities must be properly managed if we have to get results.

It is against this background and wisdom that when the responsibility of the Department of Safety Security and Liaison was put on my shoulders, I felt obliged to embark on a series of consultative meetings with different role players.

Regardless of these challenges it is encouraging to note that our province has been confirmed as the safest and secure place in the country. This achievement was as a result of the commitment and dedication of our men and women in blue, of course with the involvement of our community. This commitment is in line with what our President alluded to in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) when he said, "The overwhelming majority of these public servants have proven over and over again in actual practice that they are prepared to put their lives on the line and to sacrifice even the little time they could have with their families in defence of our freedom and our security."

Honourable Speaker and members

Last year during our tabling of the budget, we committed ourselves in this House to continue consultation with various role players throughout the province. In line with this commitment we managed to consult with institutions representing traditional leadership such as House of Traditional Leaders, Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) including 13 individual traditional leaders.

It was encouraging to note that all traditional leaders we met pledged their support in terms of crime prevention in their respective areas. They consistently indicated that they were committed to urge their subjects to play an active role in the formation and activities of CPF to improve community safety and security.

Traditional leaders consistently raised issues ranging from their security and of lack of police visibility as a result of police stations that are far away from the communities. In this respect our Department has noted that there is a need for the establishment of fully fledged police stations in places like, Magona Village near Malamulele in Vhembe, Botlokwa in Capricorn, Mapela in Waterberg and Mokwakwaila in the Mopani District to mention but a few. Some of the findings of this consultative meeting held with traditional leaders and other role players were presented to the provincial commissioner where we felt his attention is needed.

The issue of domestic violence remains a big challenge to our police as this type of crime happen behind closed doors. Our Department is going to intensify activism against women and children. Our Department will play a leading role in educating our communities that the fight against the abuse of women and children should not only be confined to 16 days but must be a continuous exercise.

There is a great need for education and training within our people concerning human rights issues. This concern prompted me to initiate a meeting with the Provincial Human Rights Commission. I am pleased to announce to this house that we have agreed to form a partnership that is going to embark on road shows aimed at educating our people on issues related to human rights.

We also realised the importance of meeting with business, farmers through their organised farmers union, Agri-Limpopo. In my meeting with the farmers recently I was greatly moved by their commitment and dedication they have shown in assisting the police to fight crime. They are prepared to finance the appointment of a consultant who will assist in the evaluation and implementation of sector policing in the province. This financial year will see the continuation of this process and focused intervention in villages in all our five districts.

Let me once more indicate, honourable Speaker, that we also had fruitful meetings with four major commercial banks to have a feel of crime patterns prevalent in their environment. The banks expressed grave concern regarding widespread acts of money laundering and sporadic incidents of automatic teller machines (ATM) bombing in the province. Although the number of the attacks on the ATMs are low in the province compared to other areas countrywide, as a Department we are pleased to see that the police are coming up with comprehensive strategies to curb these incidences before they reach an alarming proportion.

Honourable Speaker

The implementation of the Provincial Crime Prevention Strategy (PCPS) remains the cornerstone of our priorities in our rigorous fight against crime. Central to the successful implementation of the PCPS is community mobilisation against crime. To intensify community mobilisation we established district offices to ensure that the Department is accessible to broader communities in the province.

The district offices will continue to play a significant role to facilitate service delivery and sensitise communities to participate in crime prevention programmes.

With the help of the district offices, we managed to have a successful door-to-door campaign in all districts. The objective of the campaign is to promote activism against crime in general. It is our sincere belief that this campaign will lead us in the formation of a solid social movement against crime. We are continuously striving to make our people understand that they are central in the fight against crime and as such must take ownership of the police. It is our commitment to motivate and encourage our people to stand together and fight crime as a collective. Our victory against crime depends on our communities understanding that the police are a weapon in their hands to fight crime.

As 2010 FIFA World Cup approaches, the province will experience massive economic development and much more so in tourism industry. As a result the province will be subjected to the influence of new crime patterns. This will render our economy vulnerable to external factors. Last year our Department in partnership with the Department of Economic Development and Tourism and Limpopo Tourism Parks convened Tourism Safety and Security Summit. One of the most important resolutions taken at the summit was that it will be imperative for the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison to be pro-active and play a leading role in the development of an integrated tourism safety and security plan for Limpopo.

Following the summit on ritual killings and missing persons, our Department is unreservedly committed to lead the process of implementing the resolutions of the summit. The summit reaffirmed an understanding by the role players that ritual killing and missing person have become prevalent in the province particularly within Vhembe District. The conference acknowledged the weaknesses within our police and criminal justice system in apprehending and ensuring successful prosecution.

In collaboration with other departments we are going to be involved in an aggressive mass based education and awareness programme.

Honourable Speaker and members

We are pleased to indicate that the budget allocation of R37,7 million in the 2007/08 financial year, which is an increase of 23% from last year's R29 million will go a long way in assisting the Department to fulfil its constitutional mandate. It is our firm belief that the money will enable our Department to strengthen the implementation of the PCPS, community mobilisation against crime and the implementation of the resolutions of the Ritual Murder Summit held in Thohoyandou. We are also confident that this budget will enable us to implement some of the resolutions taken at the Safety and Security Tourism Summit held in Tzaneen.

The budget will also allow us to strengthen our capacity by filling vacant posts. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Provincial Treasury for allocating our Department an increased budget that will help us address our basic needs. It is my pleasure to table our vote as follows.

1. Administration

We have budgeted R20,250 million for support programmes and systems which has been distributed as follows:
* ministerial: R3,649 million
* corporate services: R8,571 million
* financial management: R6,012 million
* management services: R2,018 million

The key priority areas are intervention for the successful implementation of the Department's strategic objective and make sure that Executive Council (ExCo) resolutions, Cabinet, cluster and inter governmental resolutions are carried out. We want to submit to this house that there is a need to fill the three vacant general managers' position in order to strengthen the capacity of the Department to carry out its mandate. Last financial year we announced in this House that we were planning to introduce an internship programme, however due to financial constraints we were unable to kickstart the process. The increase in this financial year's budget will afford us an opportunity to implement the programme.

There is a need to design and implement an integrated employee wellness strategy. However because of financial constrains our Department is unable to implement a comprehensive employee health and wellness programme. With all these challenges facing us we are pleased to announce that in line with employment equity act we have manage to appoint 40% of women into management positions which is beyond the 30% national threshold.

2. Crime prevention and community relations

The Department has set aside R5,457 million for the crime prevention and community relations projects, which is an increase of 32% from last year's R4,131 million. This allocation includes compensation of employees, empowerment of youth at risk through Manyeleti Youth Academy and acquisition of goods and services.

It will also be used to facilitate the implementation and support of crime prevention projects and programmes in partnership with local authorities.

Through crime prevention unit, our Department will continue to support CPFs and youth structures to consolidate our crime prevention efforts. We are pleased to note that our communities are starting to realise that crime prevention is not the responsibility of the police alone. Communities are gradually taking part in crime prevention programmes to ensure safety and security in their respective areas. A significant progress has been made to reduce crime through the mobilisation of the communities. Our key challenge is to ensure that we foster good relations between the SAPS and the community. Although the relationship between the police and the community has remarkable improved there is some negative perception that must be constantly worked on.

We have presently managed to re-launch Community Policing Forums (CPFs) at all our 92 police stations in the province. The Department will assist in the process of capacity building for CPFs in their crime prevention efforts and enhance their understanding of their oversight role.

Our wish as the Department is to establish CPFs that are all inclusive. They must be comprised of important role players in the society, including representatives of traditional leaders as ex-officio members.

As I have indicated above an amount of R1 million has been set aside as a transfer to assist in providing both life and vocational skills to young people between the ages of 16 and 24, who are unemployed or out of school. Although the allocated amount is inadequate we will still strive to empower 330 youth this financial year. We are encouraged by positive results that we get from the academy, though placing of the graduates is still a major challenge. We are also going to prioritise and strengthen our partnership with the Department of Education to make sure that our schools are crime free zones

Monitoring and evaluation

Honourable Speaker and members

One of our critical responsibilities as per our mandate is to monitor and evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of police service delivery, handle complaints by the members of the public against the police. We conducted stakeholder survey, monitored and evaluated 26 police stations precincts. We are also happy to announce that 80% of service delivery complaints against the police were successfully handled.

We have set aside R6,554 million for compensation of staff and implementation of programmes and projects including the financing of a new unit that we have recently established. SAPS transformation has been established as a result of the heavy workload experienced in the monitoring and evaluation unit. The mandate of SAPS transformation unit is mainly to monitor the process of transformation in SAPS and ensure that a healthy relationship is established between our Department and other role players in the justice cluster. Our endeavour to transform SAPS is in line with the Department's primary objective to have a transformed and accountable policing for a secured and safe Limpopo. The department through this unit will embark on an in-depth study of transformation in the SAPS.

A docket analysis tool has been developed to address the increase in the number of cases withdrawn at station level so that we may come up with a strategy to prevent these withdrawals. This sampling will also be extended to those cases withdrawn at court level and find the reason of these withdrawals. However, I must stress that the intention is to encourage a healthy partnership between detectives and the prosecutors.

The unit will also endeavour to capacitate and commit logistic resources to the call centre to make it fully operational. We are presently intensifying the marketing of the call centre to all areas which were not covered before. I must also take this opportunity to thank some of our staff members who volunteered and sacrifice their time to engage in an outreach programme by visiting malls in Polokwane. The objective was to share information with the public regarding the services rendered by the Department, encourage them to speak out about crime and to use our toll free number to report incidents of dissatisfaction or appreciation about police services.

On 20 April this year our Department hosted Police Service Delivery Excellence Awards. The awards were a resounding success and I want to once more congratulate the winners in various categories. The intention of the awards is to reward the police stations, police units and individual police officials who consistently deliver quality service. The awards are also aimed at encouraging the police in the province to continuously improve service delivery and to know that their efforts will be acknowledged.

Policy, research and strategy

Honourable Speaker and members

The Department through policy, research and strategy unit conducts research, which enhances and intensifies the oversight responsibility. These researches will assist to determine the changing crime patterns and quality of investigation as demanded by the community. We will ensure that the root causes of crime in our society are established to guarantee that proper investigative mechanisms are put in place. The research will assist with the analysis of crime statistics which will help the department in developing appropriate crime combating strategies.

During the previous financial year the Department through the policy, research and strategy unit undertook the following research projects.

* Audit on Victim Empowerment Programme (VEP) facilities: This will inform the VEP Summit that will come up with resolutions that will culminate in the formulation of a provincial VEP plan.
* Study on drug abuse and its effect on crime: A case study of selected secondary and high schools in the Limpopo Province.
* Improved co-ordination mechanism: Developed in collaboration with business performance systems and National Treasury multi agency provincial co-ordination model to enable social crime prevention.

The unit is currently conducting a research project on assessment of current spatial location of police stations in relation to needs of communities.

The research is currently being conducted to selected police stations but our plan is to extend it to other police stations and their respective precincts.

The following research projects, honourable Speaker, are in the pipeline:
* an in-depth study on drugs and violence in schools (in collaboration with Department of Education),
* analysis of provincial crime statistics, station performance and flashpoints to inform and direct crime awareness campaigns and this will be coupled with monitoring and evaluation oversight visits.

Stakeholders' surveys will be conducted in the precincts of 15 selected police stations. The survey will provide us with information on the root causes of crime, determine community needs and changing crime patterns. We will intensify the research on drugs and its effect on crime at schools which will lead to a symposium which will be held in collaboration with the Department of Education. We have allocated R500 000 to carry out these responsibilities

Communications

Honourable Speaker

In the 2006/07 financial year we were pleased to see our Department establishing a fully-fledged communication unit to ensure that the programmes and events of the Department are marketed and communicated to communities. This unit assisted a great deal in dealing and correcting negative perceptions the media and the public had about the Department. It played an important role to maximise public participation in crime prevention programmes and intensifying media coverage on the Department's outreach initiatives.

I am sure that this house will agree with me that the 2006/07 financial year was characterised by distressing incidents of ritual killings, a series of gruesome killing, missing persons, abuse of women and children and a number of other social crimes. The communication unit was always there in these difficult times to issue statements from the departmental point of view on these unfortunate incidents.

The launching of the departmental newsletter will go a long way in assisting the continuous marketing of the PCPS. It is important to continue with this publication to educate our people that the main objective of the PCPS is to bring the reduction of crime in the province.

This financial year we have set aside R1,435 million for the promotion and implementation of the departmental programmes. The unit pulled all the stops to ensure that community participation and interaction in the departmental programmes is maximised. This was evident by a large turnout at all our events.

Last year with the budget of R1,03 million, the unit managed to organise one of the biggest mass rally on crime prevention at Mutale's Makonde Sports Ground in the Vhembe District.

The Department through its communication unit was instrumental in the establishment of solid partnership with some of the media houses in the province. The partnership has since proved to be advantageous to the Department as through this co-operation our events registered maximum attendance.

The partnership contributed a great deal in informing and educating communities about our programmes. We want to take this opportunity to thank all media houses for playing a significant role in informing communities about our programmes, projects and other activities. Our success in hosting and organising the launch of 16 Days Of Activism Against Women and Child Abuse, the hosting of the summit on ritual killings and missing person in Thohoyandou, community mobilisation against crime and Police Service Excellence Awards to mention just a few are good examples of the fruits of this partnership.

In conclusion, honourable Speaker, as I have already indicated that last year we had two summits, one on ritual killings and missing persons and the other on tourism safety and security, the implementation of the resolutions of these summits will have a huge impact on our meagre budget. The addition of seven police stations to our province from Mpumalanga will also become an added financial responsibility which demands appropriate financing. The fact that our province is sharing borders with three South African Development Community (SADC) countries, Botswana Zimbabwe and Mozambique imply that we must have a multi lateral engagement with them to combat crime.

The introduction of district offices in all the five districts will make serious inroads to our finances. In this connection the Provincial Treasury must take into account the financial burden that is going to be placed on our doorsteps. However, we want to assure this House that with these limited financial resources we are resolved to fight crime by all means at our disposal.

I thank you! Ndaaa!

Issued by: Limpopo Provincial Government
15 May 2007