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The Select Committee on Security and Justice welcomed the briefing it received from the Acting Minister of Police, Prof Firoz Cachalia and the Western Cape Provincial Commissioner for Police, Lt Gen Thembisile Patekile, yesterday on the strategy to combat gangsterism and extortion in the Western Cape.
 
The delegation that briefed the committee included the Deputy Minister of Police, Mr Cassel Mathale and the Deputy National Commissioner: Policing, Lt Gen Tebello Mosikili. The committee heard that the problem of gang-related violence in the Western Cape is exacerbated by competition between rival gangs for control of drug smuggling routes, urban distribution networks and territorial rivalry for extortion, which often lead to a surge of gun-related deaths.
 
The committee Chairperson, Ms Jane Mananiso, assured the Acting Minister and the provincial commissioner that the committee’s oversight role on the issue is corrective and collaborative rather than being judgmental. She said: “Our principle as a committee is to work together with our sister departments in the justice cluster collaboratively in finding solutions to challenges they are faced with.”  
 
The acting Minister told the committee that in the wake of an outcry over this crisis he visited the province and met various affected stakeholders and, in the process, got the measure of the challenge at hand, which their strategy seeks to address.
 
In his view, the criminal economy is the cause of these violent upheavals. He said most often gangs expand their reach and notoriety by recruiting desperate young people to join their violent franchises. He told the committee that as the gang bosses of the violent gangs get richer, they forge both national and transnational tentacles and have the ability to run their gangs behind prison walls and to infiltrate police intelligence.
 
The committee heard that the operational focus areas of the Western Cape Strategy on Gangs and extortion comprise integrated crime intelligence and data analysis to link different criminal markets, multi-agency cooperation between various criminal justice clusters, flexible task teams capable of addressing overlapping crime threats, avoiding siloed responses, and community partnerships to build trust and support to tackle root causes and gather information.
 
Members of the committee asked how SAPS is going to monitor the progress of this strategy. The acting Minister pledged that SAPS would submit quarterly reports to the committee as a means to enforce accountability against them. 
 
The acting Minister told the committee that there is systemic corruption in the institution and this stems from existing loopholes in its procurement system. He further emphasised that much criminality is a result of South Africa’s loose procurement regime, which does not protect the public purse against fraud and corruption.
 
Ms Mananiso agreed that legislative reforms on the Procurement Act and Supply Chain systems will assist as the legislation is currently exposed to misinterpretations for nefarious purposes. Ms Mananiso also thanked the delegation for the briefing.

Issued by the Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Select Committee on Security and Justice, Jane Mananiso