Pretoria - ActionSA will on Thursday march to the SAPS headquarters in Pretoria to highlight what it called police failures.
The march – expected to be led by party president Herman Mashaba and national chairperson Michael Beaumont, including all nine ActionSA provincial chairpersons – will culminate in the handing over of a memorandum to Police Minister Bheki Cele.
Mashaba said the memorandum will detail the failures of SAPS stations across the country and they will give Cele three months to respond to their grievances or face litigation.
“We are giving the minister (Cele) three months to address these challenges. If he fails to do so, ActionSA will consider litigation to uphold the rights of all South Africans to live free from fear,” Mashaba said.
The “ever-worsening” crime stats painted a grim picture of how criminals operate without concern while law-abiding South Africans lived in fear, he said.
He gave an example of crime-ridden Cape Town, where Naeema Marshall, 14, was recently shot and killed while visiting relatives. According to police, the murder was allegedly committed by a 14-year-old boy from Eerste River.
In another alarming case on the Cape Flats, an off-duty police officer, 37, was shot and killed in Mitchells Plain recently. A stray bullet struck the officer while he was walking with his young daughter. The officer was part of the Law Enforcement Advancement Programme.
Western Cape law enforcement authorities have announced they would be on high alert following a rise in gang activity and gun violence in recent weeks. For the first three months of this year, more than 500 illegal guns were confiscated in volatile areas and those in possession of them were arrested.
Mashaba said: “This cannot be accepted in a country where a hard-fought Constitution guarantees all South Africans safety of person and property.
“Police stations should make South Africans feel safe in their homes, streets and communities. Instead, they have become the site of policing failure where non-functional vehicles rust, telephones are not answered and where South Africans are denied justice for crimes committed against them.”
Many men and women in uniform worked tirelessly, against all odds, to give effect to their duties to keep South Africans safe, Mashaba said.
“The failure of our police stations must be placed at the feet of SAPS leadership and the minister.”
Cele’s spokesperson, Lirandzu Themba, said they were not aware of the march. “Mr Cele is attending to police matters in Johannesburg, she said, referring to the shoot-out in Zama Impilo informal settlement in Riverlea, where several people were killed at the weekend over illegal mining.
In May, Cele released the county’s crime statistics, revealing that more than 6 200 people were killed between January and March, meaning there are almost 70 murders in South Africa a day. Temba, Akasia, Brooklyn, Pretoria Central and Sunnyside police stations were in the list of top 30 police stations plagued by serious crime across the country, the latest crime statistics show.
Pretoria News