First, allow us to wish you a wonderful and safe new year. Thank you once again for responding positively to my invitation. Before I deal with the primary matters of this conference.

At the beginning of my tenure as Minister of Police last year I set out what many called an ambitious plan.

The question was and remains - how do we disturb, disrupt and erupt on crime.

As a theme of our work; I said, “we have no time to waste time”. This meant I am alive to the challenges and realities of what our people in our streets, homes and workplaces. Much of the complex and difficult milestones I set for myself have been achieved in less than a year on the job and our bold plans are finding shape.

We introduced the new SAPS Employment Regulations of 2017, which were gazetted in October and are now applicable. This was a part of my broader strategic intervention aimed at owning the legal instruments towards stabilising this organisation.

We had to make sure that Minister of Police is not a mere spectator but is accorded the necessary tools to supervise and exercise executive authority over the organisation.

We have now installed a competent, fit for purpose full time NasCom, General Khehla Sitole, here with me.                                       

Investigations on General Phahlane are on-going and IPID has briefed you on their progress.

The case of General Berning Ntlemeza has history at various court levels and on the 13th December 2017 Constitutional Court has decided on 06 December 2017 ordered that Mr Ntlemeza’s application for leave to appeal be dismissed, therefore disposing of the matter.

Mr Ntlemeza has since signed the relevant retirement documents.

I have started with a process of appointing the new DPCI Head as guided by SAPS Act. An advertisement for the vacancy has been published and we anticipate finality of the process before the end of February 2018.

An Independent Interviewing Panel will be appointed to advise me on fit and proper shortlist of candidates to choose from and in this regard I invite our members and all South Africans who have this career passion to apply.

The closing date for applications to reach my office is the 9th February 2018 then after the panel shall conduct interviews and make a shortlist to be submitted to me for consideration. Further details are available on department’s website. Part of the Turn-Around Plan in our crime fighting strategy is to have intelligence led policing, to disturb, disrupt and erupt on crime. We could not achieve this without having stability at Crime Intelligence Division as well. In the past 5 years, CI has seen 12 Acting Divisional Commissioners – this alarmed me greatly when I resumed my position and made it a core short-term plan to fix it. It is now fixed.

In this regard I wish to announce that Lt. General Richard Mdluli who held the position of Divisional Commissioner albeit under a long suspension, with mutual agreement will be relieved of his duties with immediate effect. This enables us to move to the next chapter and instil stability and vision at CI.

I have instructed General Sitole to henceforth set out to appoint a fit and proper man or woman into the position without further delay. Again, I am saying we have no time to waste time.

Included in my stability plan was to fill the vacancy of Deputy National Commissioner of Crime Detection, Lt. General Tsumane resumed this task last year.

We are also applying our minds on filling the new vacancies of Deputy National Commissioner Management Intervention and Divisional Commissioner for Detectives, positions that shall be filled before the end of January.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank the former Lt. Generals Kruser and Nkomo for their long public service to the people of South Africa.

Our theme; we have no time to waste time thus finds tangible expression.

We are dealing with serious levels of violent crimes, organised crime, corruption in public and private sector – again we have the private sector being the main protagonist in public sector corruption as such we need to up our ante over private sector criminals and this requires that the head of DPCI be alive to the complexities of 21st century criminality which includes cybercrime, terrorism, human trafficking, drug trafficking, complex financial crimes and the escalating Cash-In-Transit crimes.

We need a technologically savvy criminal justice system. We must refuse to live side by side with crime.

With organisational stability, SAPS will be able to confront the scourge of gender based violence and crimes involving alcohol and drug abuse and weapons. I will be seeking more stringent laws to curb the abuse of alcohol or easy access of alcohol as it contributes highly on reported crimes.

We simply have no time to waste time.

In my statement to the Portfolio Committee on Police last year, I revealed my intention to reduce head office costs at SAPS through a process of de-escalating top tier managers to newly drawn boundaries in a regionalisation plan that will see us complimenting the work of Provincial Commissioners and lessening their burdens.

This adds new impetus and experience closer to the people. Critical regions and even critical police stations will now have Major Generals and Lt. Generals directly responsible meaning we will from the 1st of February, starting with Gauteng Province will have Regional Police Commissioners with a downward focussed migration of resources as we disturb, disrupt and erupt on crime in a systematic way.

Regionalisation I believe will respond quicker and better than Provincialised structure. Provincial Structures will still exist as per constitutional requirement but responsive regional commanders with adequate resources will now assist them in their work.

The pilot on Regionalisation will be a phased focus starting with Gauteng, followed by the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape.

Regionalisation is one of the most important changes in police resources deployment in over a decade in our country. In essence, we are revolutionising the manner police work.

We are changing the way we understand crime and the way we respond to it. We have to bring resources down where they are needed most.

Regionalisation will first focus on particular high weighting areas and hot spots. The goal is to reduce violent crime sharply by targeting the known high crime geographical areas.

Our people are under siege from violent criminals, greedy public and private sector officials – we must unleash the might of state power onto them all.

I will be making further very important announcements next week with regards to our plans to disturb, disrupt and erupt on crime.

I thank you.