SA’s top cop keeps fit to stay focused

AS a long-distance runner who

has taken part in numerous 21km races, new National Commissioner of Police General Khehla John Sitole knows the importance of endurance. It is his stamina, patience and commitment to the job that have kept Sitole going as a police officer in a career that spans more than 30 years.

“I believe in fitness. I am an athlete, a long-distance runner, I trained karate and I was one of the best soccer players. I believe fitness has kept me focused in everything I do in life,” the soft-spoken police boss revealed to SAnews recently.

Sitole made history recently by becoming the first career policeman to permanently head the police service since George Fivaz was appointed by then president Nelson Mandela in 1995. All his other predecessors were political appointees.

Sitole, a devoted father of two, has big plans for the police service and began to work on a turnaround strategy the moment he was informed of his appointment to head the more than 195000 men and women in blue.

In his ideal world, South Africa would be crime-free and the SAPS would be a world-class organisation.

One of Sitole’s first tasks, following his appointment in November, was to restore the authority of the state, bring back confidence in the police service and foster unity.

“My first priority was to stamp the authority of the state so that criminals begin to know that there is policing in the country. Our communities are entitled to safety and it is their constitutional right,” he said.

But Sitole knows that to restore confidence in the police and achieve his goal of reducing crime, he will have to start by getting his house in order and get rid of all police officers with criminal records and cases against them.

About 57 of these officers were on their way out and more would follow, he said.

Police Minister Bheki Cele conceded in Parliament this week that 57 SAPS members working in sensitive units such as family violence, child Protection and sexual offences units had criminal records.

Cele said processes were under way to remove the officers from the system.

Strict vetting and lifestyle audits

In 2013, an audit found that about 1448 high-ranking police officials were on a list of officers with criminal records. Sitole is aware of these challenges and says vetting will be beefed up under his leadership.

He is also introducing lifestyle audits for all senior managers in the SAPS.

“We have just presented our vetting strategy and turnaround approach to Parliament and it spells out how we are going to deal with vetting. Under my leadership there will be no one that will enter the organisation without having been vetted.

“We are now linking vetting to the recruitment strategy of the organisation. This means there will be very limited chances for people to enter the organisation without proper vetting having been done on them.

“Even for promotions within the organisation, vetting is going to be a requirement,” said Sitole.

On lifestyle audits, every senior manager will be subjected to monitoring, and the capacity of the people to carry out this task will be increased.

“We are rooting out corruption, and those who we find to have their hands dirty, we will simply take our uniform from them and give them the orange uniform,” he said, referring to the prison uniform, which is orange in colour.

Sitole rose through the ranks of the police after joining the then police force in 1986.

Before his appointment to the top position of national commissioner, he had served as an assistant commissioner in his home province, Mpumalanga, and until recently, was divisional commissioner for Protection and Security Services.

Ngcobo tragedy

A few months into his appointment, Sitole found himself having to confront a growing concern around police killings, the most recent case being the Ngcobo massacre, where gunmen opened fire at a police station, killing five policemen and an off-duty SANDF member. The killings sent shock waves throughout the small Eastern Cape town and the country.

Sitole is now putting in place measures to beef up security at all police stations across the country to prevent what happened in Ngcobo from happening elsewhere. This includes physical security assessments and installation of CCTV cameras at every police station.

“One of the security weaknesses which created opportunities for the people to attack the police in Ngcobo is the police station design itself.

“The design of the Ngcobo police station is still the old design and does not comply with safety and security standards. At that station there is a wall in front of the building which shields and limits the view of the police to see what’s coming.

“That is why they only saw the attackers as they were firing.”

Sitole has instructed that the design of the Ngcobo police station be changed immediately.

Cases in the public domain

Sitole appears unfazed by scepticism expressed by some members of the public stemming from the slow progress of some investigations, including the case of the murder of Bafana Bafana star goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa in 2014.

“I don’t want to talk much about the case of Senzo Meyiwa because that case requires action and results. It has haunted the public enough it has haunted the family enough.

“When I came in, I put together a multidisciplinary investigation team and I gave them a special assignment and I said, you go for this particular case because it’s one of the high-profile cases and it’s a priority for us.

“As I am speaking, they are on it,” Sitole said, adding that he treated the Meyiwa case the same way that he had handled the Ngcobo matter.

OR Tambo Airport robberies

Another area of concern for Sitole is the growing organised crime incidents at Africa’s biggest airport, OR Tambo International.

Gauteng police revealed recently that there had been several cases where business people and tourists who were visiting South Africa were stopped immediately after they left the airport or were followed. They would then be robbed of money as well as their possessions.

These incidents were followed by what was believed to be one of the biggest heists in the airport’s history, when robbers made off with an estimated R24million.

The public was quick to question the capacity of the police’s intelligence division after failure to detect and prevent these robberies.

Sitole is cautious about apportioning blame, but is worried about the weaknesses in the country’s crime intelligence.

“What I cannot dispute and no one else can dispute is that we have serious challenges with our intelligence. The intelligence is part of the turnaround strategy I have been working on.”

This started with deposing the post of General Richard Mdluli, and by April 1 Sitole will announce a new crime intelligence boss.

Mdluli was suspended as head of the Crime Intelligence Division in 2011 and there had been no permanent leader in that post while Mdluli continued to draw a salary.

“I will be redirecting and rebuilding and you will see a new Crime Intelligence Division altogether, and you will be seeing a different response altogether.”

More detectives, re-enlisting

One of the aspects blamed for the slow progress and backlog in police investigations has been the shortage of detectives, something Sitole’s turnaround strategy will address.

“I have designed what they call a crime detection framework, and in terms of that, our first priority is the resourcing of the detectives.

In resourcing them, we are looking at various approaches. One approach is the recruitment of more detectives to increase the capacity.

“The short-term approach is the re-enlistment of detectives and those who left the detective environment for other areas.

"I will extend this to the buying of hours for those people who have got detective skills but might have long retired from the police but love the police service and hate criminals.”

To complement the detectives’ capacity speedily, Sitole said he would bring in technology as part of the new way of doing things.

“For instance, in the issue of cybercrime, you need technology to deal with this crime, and one of my priorities is the review of the crime detection technology at our disposal. This is because when the technology is advanced, we might even need fewer human beings.”

Police cannot do it all alone

As Sitole forges ahead in his difficult task of leading the police in a country with one of the world’s highest levels of violent crime, he has appealed to the public to walk with him.

“Criminals reside within society. Society has the information.

“We will be formalising the community policing forums and we will engage more with communities. We will be empowering communities to fight crime and be self-sufficient. We cannot do anything without society, and society cannot do without us.” - SAnews.gov.za