National Police Commissioner, General Khehla Sitole says he is happy with the presence of police officers on the N1 between Limpopo and Gauteng.
Sitole participated in a road block on the N1 in Polokwane. He says police will remain visible on all busy roads throughout the festive season.
“I am proud of what my officers are doing because the whole of this road connecting from Johannesburg right to Polokwane is safe and it is flooded by police together with traffic officials, and everyone is feeling safe and I have personally spoken to motorists and they appreciate the safe and secure environment.”
Meanwhile, community safety expert Barbara Holtmann says while shortage of resources can make the work of the police harder, it should not be used as an excuse for poor policing. This comes as residents in several areas in North West are calling on the provincial police management to allot more resources such as vehicles and personnel to their stations.
They say the police’s usual excuses is that they cannot attend to crime incidents as a result of having no vehicles.
Holtmann says the work of the police is harder as a result of high crime levels. “I think that the police don’t do a good enough job and I think that part of that is as a result of poor resourcing. But I also think that we have a problem in South Africa that really there is a terrible state of lawlessness and that has resulted in a terrible lack of trust between the police and communities and even where the police might be able to assist they are not necessarily useful or helpful, partly because people think they are not going to be.”
North West police spokesperson Sabata Mokgwaabone has admitted that there were challenges of resources in some of the police stations and that they are working on it.
