Lives and livelihoods can be saved if SAPS shares intelligence on pending violence

20 July 2021

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is calling on the SAPS to embrace the work of the private security companies hired to protect our communities’ precious resources and be willing to share intelligence information and warnings to prevent violence and looting from happening again.

Following the widespread incidents of looting, violence, and social unrest in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, private security companies have proven to be resourceful and effective to help the SAPS to deal with such incidents.

In areas where security companies were alerted about the possibility of looting at the malls, they managed to safeguard those areas from any looting and destruction. We have also seen that in areas where SAPS and security companies were working together, they managed to stop the looters.

The safety and wellbeing of our people are of utmost importance for the DA, therefore the solution for SAPS to work more closely with private security companies will make an exponential difference for communities.

Through enhancing safety, people can live their lives of value and families can prosper into the next generation. Everyone deserves to feel safe, and no one can have freedom while they live in fear of their lives and businesses being looted and vandalised.

Through better coordination between the SAPS and the private security companies, we will be able to keep the people of our province and its resources safer.

For the longest time, the DA has been proposing a total reform of the SAPS to ensure that there are honest and dedicated police officers committed to serving our communities. Through the DA’s proposed solutions, we can have a safer future, respect for the rule of law and practical steps in place to ensure that the violence and looting which recently occurred and were unprecedented in our democracy, never takes place again.

The DA has written to Premier David Makhura requesting him to urgently liaise with the leadership of our various law enforcement agencies in the province to give account of their responses to the violence and looting that has taken place in Gauteng.

We will be writing to the Gauteng SAPS Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General, Elias Mawela to propose that SAPS should work and share intelligence information with private security companies.

The DA will continue to put pressure on the Gauteng SAPS Provincial Commissioner to provide daily updates on all platforms to the residents of Gauteng as to how violence has been addressed in key hotspots as well as joint operations in those areas.

Issued by Michael Shackleton, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Community Safety, 20 July 2021