Metro cops to join SAPS?

Mogomotsi Magome

JOHANNESBURG: The days of the metro police operating as independent police departments accountable to municipal authorities may be numbered as the ANC is set to endorse their absorption into the SA Police Service.

Their scope of operation, which currently includes traffic law enforcement and by-law enforcement, would be widened to give them investigative powers and they would receive the same level of training as SAPS members.

The move, if implemented, would likely see the metro police adopting the same military ranks as the SAPS.

Metro police chiefs, who are currently accountable to municipal councils and municipal authorities, would be accountable to the national police commissioner, even though municipalities would still be afforded the powers of appointing the police chief in consultation with the deputy police commissioner.

This would also see Mayco members responsible for community safety relinquish their oversight of metro police departments, as is currently the case in the metros.

The proposal has made it on to the agenda of the party’s upcoming National General Council (NGC) in October.

The ANC will use the NGC to review policy and assess its performance since the election of current leadership in 2012.

This proposal is gaining momentum and is currently included in the draft white paper on policing, which has been released for public comment. “The objective for a single police service is to maximise effective policing,” says the NGC discussion document.

“It will require a reporting function to the national commissioner.”

However, the draft policy on policing raises concerns that the available resources in South Africa do not permit the huge duplication of functions, and that where policing forces are fragmented, the standard of training and other support services are likely to diminish.

But the proposal is set to face a legal challenge from the DA, which is the only other political party that has political control of any police service as it governs the City.

Mayco member for safety and security JP Smith described the proposal as a move by the ANC to centralise policing and ensure that nobody else had control over any form of policing except an ANC-appointed police commissioner and minister of police.

“We made strong submissions on the green paper and the white papers on this issue and they have gone largely ignored. We have made it clear that this is a matter we will take to the Constitutional Court because there is much evidence that metro police offer much value to policing in the current structure.”