Ramaphosa to officiate at police passing out parade

PRETORIA – President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Tuesday officiate at the South African Police Service’s passing out parade of trainees who have successfully completed the nine-month basic police development learning programme.

Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said the president will also address the newly recruited police officers at the SAPS Academy in Tshwane.

“The South African Police Service is this week conducting passing out parades across the country where close to 10,000 successful recruits will formally join the ranks of the police service,” Magwenya said.

“This is an important contribution to the fight against crime as the police service will have a higher number of personnel to work with communities to keep neighbourhoods and businesses safe.”

At the parade in Tshwane, Ramaphosa will be joined by the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, and the national police commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, to observe the certification of 3,000 trainees.

Ahead of the festive season, Masemola has assured South Africans that SAPS safer festive season operations, which are in full swing, are characterised by heightened crime awareness campaigns, foot, vehicle and air-support patrols, stop and searches, arrests, vehicle checkpoints and roadblocks.

Masemola told journalists that “maximum resources” had been deployed to assert the authority of the state to regain public confidence, and ensure that people across South Africa are and feel safe and secure.

The police’s priority six focus areas this festive season include intensifying campaigns and police actions towards addressing gender-based violence and femicide; intensifying efforts to combat aggravated robberies such as cash-in-transit (CIT) heists, ATM bombings, carjacking, robberies at residential and business premises; and enhancing border security.

The fourth focus area looks into the enforcement of legislation to “decisively” address the proliferation of illegal firearms, second-hand goods, liquor enforcement as well as the enforcement of the Sasrea Act (Safety at Sports and Recreational Events Act) to secure safety at sporting and other events.

The fifth area focuses on the enforcement of by-laws targeting hijacked buildings, destruction of essential infrastructure, extortion as well as unlawful sale and use of fire crackers.

“The sixth focus area looks into road safety where we are jointly conducting roadblocks and vehicle checkpoints together with the metro police departments as well as provincial and national traffic police,” said Masemola said.

Last week, the president pulled out of the annual International Anti-Corruption Day commemoration on Friday, hosted by the Public Service Commission (PSC) in partnership with the UN in South Africa and Unisa, where he was scheduled to deliver the keynote address.

Hours before the event, it emerged that Ramaphosa was no longer addressing the high-level event, citing a clash in his schedule.