Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Cilliers Brink MP.
After nine years, millions of wasted rands, and even the appointment of a metro police chief, the Manguang metro still has no actual metro police service.
The metro council decided to establish a metro police service in 2012 and although the decision was reaffirmed in 2016, it was never implemented.
In 2017 Israel Kgamanyane was appointed as the head of the non-existent metro police service, but still no metro police officers were appointed to perform the basic duties and functions of a metro police service.
Finally, the metro police was meant to come into being on 24 August 2021. But the day came and went without any announcement.
Sadly this is not the worst of the matter. Dirk Kotze, a DA councillor in Manguang, has discovered the following:
- Manguang is considering making 144 appointments to establish a metro police service;
- Only 60 of the proposed 144 appointments will consist of ordinary officers. In fact, the metro plans to appoint 2 deputy police commissioners, 8 colonels, 8 lieutenant colonels, 15 superintendents and 38 assistant superintendents; and
- What is worse, 24 of the 140 candidates recommended for appointment have criminal records – and apparently the municipality want to assist these applicants to “expunge” these records.
Not only was money and time wasted with the establishment of a metro police service, now the municipality wants to appoint people who have engaged in criminal activity.
Councillor Kotze will make every effort to find out exactly what the Manguang mayoral committee unveiled and decided on in this matter.
The DA will also submit parliamentary questions to the Ministers of Police and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA). We want to stop more money from being wasted, and prevent criminals from donning metro police badges.