As far as South Africa’s farming community is concerned, the latest police service budget vote tabled by minister of police Bheki Cele is yet another letdown.
Cele’s R102 137 billion budget for the 2023/24 financial year mentioned no resource allocation towards the implementation of the Rural Safety Strategy. This raises questions about whether the strategy will become just one more unfulfilled promise by the government.
The budget vote comes almost 11 months after the June 2022 Rural Safety Summit, intended to be a watershed moment for the sector’s cooperation with the police in ensuring greater safety for food-producing farming communities.
Uys van der Westhuijzen, chairperson of the Agri SA Centre for Excellence Rural Safety, said they are disappointed that little to no progress has been made available in the implementation of the strategy or utilising the summit findings to improve its effectiveness.
“We are of the view that the strategy is an appropriate vehicle to deal with the crime issues affecting farming communities provided that it is properly implemented and adequately resourced,” said van der Westhuijzen.
Meanwhile, Agri SA said Cele did not have to wait for the upcoming crime statistics to understand that the safety situation in the country is already bleak. This is especially the case in rural farming communities where policing resources are severely stretched.
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Cele’s crime strategy
The backbone of SAPS’ strategy going forward will be policing communities and policing with communities, Cele said. To this end, he allocated R70 million to all nine provinces in support of community police forums (CPF) in terms of resource requirements.
“This funding is assisting the CPFs with resources such as vehicles, laptops, torches, reflective jackets, and other tools of the trade,” Cele said.
In addition, R5 million has been set aside for community interaction such as izimbizo, awareness campaigns, summits and conferences. Cele called on communities to embrace and throw their full weight behind the police, to turn the tide of crime and create safer communities.
Using technology to fight crime
Apart from community mobilisation, SAPS intends to extend investment in appropriate technology for the use in crime prevention, criminal investigation and intelligence.
This includes the purchase of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and body-worn cameras as well as shot spotters in high-density crime areas. “To date, the SAPS is training more officers to be licensed to fly drones and including the recruitment of pilot interns, to fully capacitate the environment,” Cele said.
In addition, a total of 10 000 police trainees are said to have been enlisted in the 2023/24 financial year.
Cele said a total of 10 000 police trainees will be recruited annually for the next two financial years which is expected to bring a total of 30 000 new police recruits in the medium-term strategic framework period.
Mammoth task
As it stands, farmers battle economic, infrastructure and policy headwinds that vastly increase the cost of food production.
Agri SA believes it is therefore vital for the country’s food security that rural crime does not continue to add to the burdens encumbering rural farming communities.
“This is a vital step in the preservation of the country’s food production capacity,” said Van der Westhuijzen, pointing to the Rural Safety Strategy.
The challenge of ensuring rural safety is a mammoth task. However, rural safety must be a key component of the nation’s crime prevention strategy to ensure the long-term sustainability of farming communities and food security, Agri SA believes.
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