Police Minister Bheki Cele says many of the recommendations made to improve policing of unrest situations have been implemented by the SAPS. File Picture: Itumeleng English/African News Agency (ANA)
A few weeks before South Africa marks the 11th anniversary of the Marikana shooting, Police Minister Bheki Cele says they have implemented a number of recommendations of the Farlam Commission.
He said part of the recommendations was crowd management by Public Order Policing (POP) and the training for the unit.
Cele also said they have implemented the recommendations of the Sandy Africa report into the July 2021 unrest.
He said the police will next month table its progress report on the improvement of the POP in policing and crowd management following the Farlam and Africa reports.
The July unrest in 2021 led to the deaths of more than 350 people after the looting and destruction of businesses and the economy lost R50 billion.
Cele said the implementation of these reports in some cases, however, would have to be done with some departments.
But where SAPS have to act on what either Judge Farlam recommended on Marikana or Professor Sandy Africa recommended on the July unrest, they have acted on that.
In Marikana 34 mineworkers were killed in the North West when they went on strike over wage increases and clashed with police.
The incident happened on August 10, 2012.
Cele, who was replying to a written parliamentary question from DA MP Okkie Terblanche, said most of the recommendations have been implemented.
On the Farlam report, there were 136 recommendations and 98 were related to the police.
He said the other recommendations were for the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), the Civilian Secretariat for Police and the Department of Cooperative Governance.
“The SAPS has implemented the majority of the panel of experts report that relate directly to the SAPS and which involve the structuring of the Public Order Policing (POP), the physical capacitation of the POP capability, the amendment of the policy environment that relates to the management of public unrest and the aligning of the various training curricular, with the amended policy requirement,” said Cele.
He said they have also implemented the recommendations on the expert panel into the July 2021 unrest.
The police and the security agencies were blamed by the panel for not acting.
Former Minister of State Security Ayanda Dlodlo and Cele had publicly blamed each other for what happened.
Dlodlo had said they shared intelligence with Cele on the outbreak of the violence.
President Cyril Ramaphosa scrapped the intelligence ministry and moved the SSA to the presidency.
Cele said the Africa report recommendations have been implemented.
“A number of the 25 recommendations in the report of the expert panel into the July 2021 civil unrest require reforms to the broader security apparatus within the country, which are being addressed by the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster, as they cut across several key departments, including the SAPS.
“The recommendations emanating from the expert panel into the July 2021 civil unrest, for which SAPS has the sole, or primary responsibility, have also been implemented,” said Cele.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
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