MEC NOMANDLA BLOEM   

STRATEGIC PLAN ADDRESS

13 MARCH 2023

Programme Director

Northern Cape Police Commissioner Lt Gen Koliswa Otola

Senior Managers, Unit and Programme Heads

Trade Union Leadership with us

Colleagues

I hope we all feel welcome here today. Being able to come together in this manner was decidedly impossible just a short while ago. We must be grateful for the blessing that we can converge, put our heads together and chart our plans and strategies on keeping our people safe for the coming year and ahead. Zoom is nice but this is better.

We must have robust but forward-looking conversations, underpinned by a critical look at our resources in depth, implementation of our programmes as well as our planning, research and monitoring capacities.

None of our targets are achievable if we do not respect, develop and maintain successful stakeholder relationships. Our programmes and our delivery need to be based on principles of integration and cooperation so that we achieve results that are more effective and has an improved reach.

I cannot over-emphasize the importance of the values of professionalism, honesty and integrity in our workplace. Our organizational culture, the experience of our people, the trust with which we are approached is only as good as the last experience they have of us. As such we need to ensure that we are constantly on point and unfailingly exact.

As Servants of our people, we stand responsible to our mandate and accountable for our performance or lack thereof. We must look back at what we have achieved, how we have achieved it, where our challenges are, what goals we consistently fail to achieve, our weak links and also our strengths.

We are also here to look forward, to accept and move with new programmes - to promote institutional arrangements that will optimize the reaching of targets and to ensure we remain true to our core directives with follow-through and determination.

Going into the year we must not only use benchmarks for coordinating community-policing collaborative objectives from places where it has proven to succeed – we must find new ways in which we can tailor make programmes and interventions to address our specific and localised safety needs.

 

Gender Based Violence and Femicide is, rightly so, called our second pandemic and the World is watching at how South Africa is able to address root causes of these violations, how violence present itself in our society, as well as how we receive and process cases of harm against women, children and the LGBTQIA community.

Through the various tools we use and close contact with our people on the ground, we believe we have an understanding of what is required to move us forward towards a province that is not only geared towards accessible services but one that is more inclusive and enhances the attainment of equality and freedom from poverty and crime.

If we work in this way, l put it to you that every employee and officer in SAPS, from the most elementary occupation at entry level, to a Director responsible for a Unit – must represent a particular and special link in creating an organisational culture and environment geared towards success.

To deliver on our commitments, we have radically change our work culture to espouse values of consistency, urgency, accountability and pride. Our entire work output has to do with the very lives of our citizens. We can leave no room for complacency.

Know this, just because something has not been done before does not mean it cannot succeed. Be and feel free to come up with new solutions to recurring challenges. It is because we are failing to think outside the box that we cannot come up with truly progressive and modern solutions to problems that haunt us.

I call upon all colleagues here to remain focused and remove any and all distractions that will limit your positive input into these sessions. We are here for a reason. We must honour this reason with comprehensive solutions and strategies.

I wish you all a productive day. We have the expertise, knowledge and ability within this venue to pull together so we can move towards a Police Service that inspires excellence.

I thank you