Railway Police

[John Ashworth]

MEC Mhlahlo to launch Eastern Cape railway police in PE

7 February 2008

As part of its Safety and Security month programme, the Department of Safety and Liaison in partnership with the South African Police Service (SAPS) and Metrorail will launch the Eastern Cape Railway Police Unit in Port Elizabeth in the morning of Monday, 11 February 2008.

The event will be graced by the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Safety, Liaison, Roads and Transport, Mr Thobile Mhlahlo, SAPS management, Metrorail management, members of the Provincial Legislature and Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality councillors. It will feature an interaction between MEC Mhlahlo and commuters at the Port Elizabeth Station Shosholoza Meyl Platform as early as 6 am. After that, there will be a formal programme, which will start at 8 am, where MEC Mhlahlo will address the SAPS members responsible for rail safety and relevant stakeholders.

Eastern Cape is the last province to establish a railway police unit, which has contact points in Mount Ruth in Mdantsane, East London and Swartkops in Port Elizabeth, which are manned by a total of 145 members. Currently, there are approximately 215 student constables, who are at the Police Training College in Bhisho, who will be deployed to the unit by December 2008. There are plans to deploy 130 members for the East London to King Williams Town railway route and another 130 members for the East London to Mthatha (Kei Rail) route. This week, the Kei Rail Project was given a “thumbs up” by the Rail Safety Regulator when the Department of Roads and Transport received a operating permit to run a rail passenger service between East London and Mthatha.

On Monday, MEC Mhlahlo is expected to give an indication of when the operations will commence. Rail passenger services between East London and King Williams Town are also expected to commence before the end of March 2008. The unit has a target of 1 000 members by 2010 to ensure that commuters who will be coming to the Eastern Cape to watch matches during the FIFA World Cup are safe.

Brief background:

Many years ago, there were railway police, but were disbanded except for Cape Town. The government has been under tremendous pressure from the commuters, because of the high rate of crime inside the trains and at the stations, which left commuters feeling unsafe. The new unit’s duty is to provide a security service to the communities, who use the trains and that will ultimately restore public confidence of rail passenger service, which will encourage people to go “Back to Rail” and ease the traffic congestion that is currently being experienced by people on our road network.

Phase 2: Provincial launch of the street patrols programme

At 11h00 on the same day, MEC Mhlahlo will launch a Street Patrol Committee Programme at Zwide Township in Port Elizabeth. The programme will start with a walkabout by MEC Mhlahlo, who will be joined by former boxing world champion Vuyani “The Beast” Bungu, from Veeplaas Terminus and then proceed to Koyana Street led by the Police band. They will be joined by majorettes at the corner of Spondo and Koyana Street and proceed to Emsengeni Primary School through Johnson Road and Ntshona Street via Mabophe to Emsengeni Primary School.

The programme is a response to a national call for establishment of street committees in order to strengthen the communities’ capacity to deal with crime.

Currently, the Zwide Township has a street patrol programme, which started in August 2007 due to the experiences of high criminal activities in the area. This was done with the assistance of the KwaZakhele Community Police Forum with the intention of strengthening their neighbourhood watch programme. These patrols are conducted at night, especially on weekends, as most criminal activities take place during these times. These men and women would go to taverns and conduct random searches for weapons and other illegal items, with the assistance of the KwaZakhele Police Station.

There have been successes, which included:
* recovery of knives, pangas, illegal firearms, dagga bompies and
* arrest of suspects through the Morphotouch as provided by the SAPS of KwaZakhele. “This initiative serves as a good example of what is expected from community members in implementing the street patrol programme. Our main intention is create a peaceful atmosphere for our people to enjoy their freedom,” says MEC Mhlahlo.

Members of the media are invited to join all phases of the programme.

Issued by Ncedo Kumbaca
Ministry for Safety, Liaison, Roads and Transport
Cell: 082 44 22 388
Cell: 073 20 66 569

Issued by: Department of Safety, Liaison, Roads and Transport, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
7 February 2008

South African Government Information