The safer festive season plan launched by the South African Police Service (SAPS) lacks a sense of seriousness by the police department to address rural safety concerns and curb farm crimes. This is according to agri role players who are fed up with the constant delays in implementing the country’s National Rural Safety Strategy.
SAPS recently launched its plans to keep South Africans safe during this festive season, however, nothing was said on how police officials would be conducting their work in farming and rural areas.
According to Agri SA, while they welcome the 2022 safer festive season operations launched by SAPS, the national police force has some explaining to do on why some of strategies documented in the National Rural Safety Strategy have not been implemented.
Strategy left hanging
The strategy, which aims to address rural safety as an integrated day-to-day policing approach, remains unimplemented 11 years after it was first adopted in parliament.
“It remains essential that minister Bheki Cele provides details for the rollout of the National Rural Safety Strategy in rural farming communities after the Rural Safety Summit held in June 2022 in Parys. Agri SA urges minister Cele and police management to take the implementation of the strategy seriously,” said Christo van der Rheede, executive director of Agri SA.
“As it stands, rural communities are still awaiting progress on the implementation of the National Rural Safety Strategy, which was reaffirmed during the summit in Parys.”
Full implementation needed
South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world with a high murder rate.
This is illustrated by the recent crime statistics released by the police minister for the second quarter of 2022/2023, showing an increase in relation to the same period for 2021/2022.
There has also been an increase in murder by 13% or 76 murders per day, an increase of all contact crimes and aggravated robbery with robberies at residents increasing by 8,4%. There was also an increase in farm murders for the same period.
As far as Van der Rheede is concerned, the blitz operations envisaged by the police together with their intensified efforts to combat these crimes must be included in the police’s operational plans for the rural farming areas.
“[The strategy] needs to be implemented fully in every rural police station urgently. The strategy provides the best means to deal with the crimes affecting farming communities provided that it is properly implemented and resourced.”
It has been six months since the summit and the minister has been silent on the progress of the adoption by the Cabinet of the proposed interventions agreed upon at the summit, Van der Rheede said.
In a letter addressed to Cele, Agri SA called on the minister of police to prioritise and to fast-track this process in order to address rural safety.
“We are still waiting for a response from minister Cele. If the effective implementation of the strategy is not taken seriously by police management, the extensive engagements over the course of the summit would be of no value.”
Cross border criminality
Meanwhile, according to Jakkals le Roux, chairperson of Free State Agriculture’s (FSA’s) Rural Safety Committee, illegal activities and crimes that adversely affect the safety of every farmer, their families and workers located near the southern Lesotho border area, are becoming a great concern.
For years, small-scale as well as commercial farmers have been targeted by cross border criminality.
“Farmers in the Klaarwater, Spring Valley and Boesmanskop area, along the Southern Lesotho border, are beyond despondent as this area is a transit route for suspected stolen goods and especially livestock to Lesotho,” Le Roux said.
According to Dr Jane Elize Buys, safety and risk analyst at FSA, in the Free State, between 52 to 54% of all the crimes within the agricultural sector relate to stock theft.
“In the festive season we [might] experience an increase in criminal activity and theft from farms. But overall, throughout the year, it is imperative that farmers, their families and their workers should be especially vigilant in the environments they work in,” she said.
Meanwhile, farming communities have been urged to be more alert during the festive season and ensure that they have protective measures in place.
ALSO READ: Agri leaders urge ANC to focus on key issues
Sign up for Mzansi Today: Your daily take on the news and happenings from the agriculture value chain.
