The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) has finally convened its 9th North West conference in Rustenburg. The conference was halted twice last year by some disgruntled members of the union, who were unhappy about the processes used to convene the conference.
Addressing the conference, union president Zizamele Cebekhulu says a lack of resources is to blame for the high levels of crime in the country. He says thousands of police officers sit idle in national and provincial offices instead of patrolling the streets.
Cebekhulu says, “We must fight the bureaucracy that is in the police that keeps police officers in offices, there are a lot of police officers, trained police officers in office. The head office alone, we’re sitting with over 36 000 members sitting. The issue of crime for us to succeed in crime, we need political will. Another thing is that they want want operational powers to be taken down to provinces, provinces must be empowered with the power and the resources to fight crime.”
“The problem is do we have enough police on the ground, the problem is do we have enough prosecutors in court? The problem is when you release these statistics you must also tell us how many police, and the power that you have on the ground. You must just keep on saying remove so and so. We will remove everybody but the problem is not solved, we must have members on the ground,” he adds.
VIDEO: Crime tops agenda at 9th Popcru North West conference:
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