Johannesburg - Police unions have cautioned against adding more responsibilities to a crippled institution whose resources are already depleted beyond measure.
Last week, the Independent Policing Union of South Africa (Ipusa) said it welcomed the new draft regulations, which were gazetted for comment recently, as they were aimed at establishing a new council and regulator.
The changes will also provide the minister of police with a host of new functions to protect the country’s resources.
Bethuel Nephtal Nkuna, the president for Ipusa, said while they welcomed the changes, they were concerned that adding more responsibility to the police to deploy its resources to these new environments would only add more woes for the force whose resources were already depleted.
“Criminals aren’t only tearing apart South Africa’s critical infrastructure, such as Eskom, the railway and roads, but also the lives and properties of all South Africans. This is not happening because of the lack of the law, but because of the lack of implementation of the current law due to a shortage of manpower and vehicles.”
Nkuna said as it stood, crime in the country had been an issue that showed no signs of coming down, as evidenced by the planned road truck carnages in 2018 and the unrest that erupted during July 2021.
“Our members are currently working under very difficult conditions, grappling with the challenge of load shedding, which has such an impact on their safety. They don’t have sufficient manpower to look after their own police stations, which are robbed daily.”
He added: “Saps is losing about 600 firearms per year due to their infrastructure, which is not adequate to protect them. Apart from their safety, when electricity hits their areas, members are forced to use their own cellphone data to disseminate information to boots on the ground for them to respond to complaints.”
The organisation suggested, however, that the minister consider roping in personnel from the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (Psira), as it boasted more than 500 000 members, which would help enhance their capacity to protect the government’s critical infrastructure through the new draft regulations, as they did with National Key Points.
“Acsa is a perfect example at the airports. There should be proper co-ordination between these two departments. If the department considers going ahead with this legislation, we propose that security companies be considered to guard this infrastructure.”
The Star