SAPS informed of their responsibilities during landgrabs

6 November 2019

AfriForum launched a project today to visit as many police stations in Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga to distribute guides that clearly explain the procedures for the police to manage landgrabs.

Landgrabs has increased significantly since the beginning of 2019, with about 45 cases in Gauteng, five in Limpopo and nine in Mpumalanga.

It seems that the SAPS often refuse to comply with their constitutional duties and responsibilities – especially regarding landgrabs. This results in owners of land on which landgrabs occur having to dig deep into their own pockets to approach the court and halt the landgrab.

Despite a directive and national instruction on the handling of landgrabs that the SAPS sent to all police stations, some police stations still do not comply with the directive and instruction. AfriForum has to step in regularly and apply pressure on a national level to force the SAPS into action. 

“AfriForum will continue to act as civil watchdog and pressurise government into fulfilling its constitutional duties. We will act decisively against police stations that do not discharge their duties,” says Hillel Coetzer, AfriForum’s Head of Safety for the northern region.

“AfriForum has already instituted legal proceedings against police stations that have caused – through their failure to act timeously and correctly – innocent people to suffer major financial losses. Landowners had to scrape together enormous sums of money to approach the courts and use private security firms to save their properties from landgrabbers,” says Marnus Kamfer, AfriForum’s Legal and Risk Manager.

Join your local AfriForum neighbourhood watch: SMS your name to 45353 (R1).

Issued by Carina Bester, Media Relations Officer, 6 November 2019