ActionSA asks South Africans to share their experiences of failing police stations

31 July 2023

Today ActionSA will begin engaging South Africans across all 9 provinces to develop a dossier of police stations that are failing the people of our country.

This will form part of a memorandum of demands that will be presented to the Minister of Police in a march ActionSA will convene on Thursday, 03 August 2023. I will lead this march and I will be joined by ActionSA’s 9 Provincial Chairpersons who will each be responsible for representing the challenges in their provinces.

Police stations are meant to be a site of safety and justice for all South Africans. The reality is that these police stations have become reminders that criminals can operate with impunity in South Africa while law-abiding citizens do not enjoy their rights to the safety of person and property.

In police stations across South Africa phones are not answered, police vans lie in a state of disuse and many communities live with the knowledge that the criminals, gangs and drug dealers are protected.

The march ActionSA will lead is intended to place these failures of police stations at the doorstep of the Ministry of Police and give them a deadline by which a plan of action must be produced to get our police stations working. Should such a plan not be forthcoming ActionSA’s legal team are poised to approach the courts to uphold the constitutionally enshrined rights of South Africans to safety.

ActionSA leaders will be out in communities across the country today and tomorrow to engage the views of South Africans and a digital platform has been made available to ensure that the voices of South Africans find expression in the memorandum to be delivered to Minister Cele on Thursday.

Issued by Herman Mashaba, ActionSA President, 31 July 2023