The Freedom Front Plus has cautiously welcomed Police Minister Bheki Cele plans to deal with serious and violent crime, particularly aggravated robberies.
Speaking at a media briefing on Monday, Cele said the SAPS would roll out a plan that includes high visibility through the use of uniformed police on foot patrols and in police vehicles.
Cele said they would be supported by the police's air wing, regular cordon and search operations, roadblocks and relentless searches for wanted suspects.
The Police Minister said that dedicated teams would be established to track and arrest wanted suspects in crimes including cash-in-transit heists, hijackings, murders, house robberies, gang violence and related crimes and taxi violence and related crimes.
Commenting on Cele’s plans, the Freedom Front Plus said that while it welcomed the news, the plans revealed serious problems in the SA Police Service.
The FF Plus said the SAPS’s admission that Crime Intelligence had been dysfunctional for the past six years is a serious indictment of the previous police commissioners and Police Ministers.
FFPlus leader, Dr Pieter Groenewald said that it took a series of cash-in-transit robberies for the SAPS to realise that organised crime can only be defeated through better crime intelligence and infiltrating criminal groups.
Groenewald said that the admission of corruption in the police must be seriously addressed otherwise his anti-crime plan would be doomed to failure.
