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Speaker 1: President Sorrama Passa had declared during the State of the

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Speaker 1: Nation address that there will be a deployment of the

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Speaker 1: South African National Defense Force to communities across the land

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Speaker 1: to fight crime in the Western Cape. The focus was

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Speaker 1: going to be on gangsterism and the impact that that's

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Speaker 1: having on our communities. Operation Prosper came into full effect

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Speaker 1: last week and Ian crameron he's a chairperson of the

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Speaker 1: Portfolio Committee on Police in the National Assembly, joins me

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Speaker 1: on the line. Now, yeah, in a very good afternoon

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon, thank you.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you're listening to the four o'clock

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Speaker 1: EWN a moment ago, but community members are concerned that

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Speaker 1: there does not appear to be a plan, saying that

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Speaker 1: there needs to be better engagements with community policing forums

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Speaker 1: and community leadership in order to actually have an impact

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Speaker 1: in fighting crime, particularly when it comes to gangsterism. How

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Speaker 1: do you respond to that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I hundred percent correct. I mean, look,

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Speaker 2: if you're going to sit in a formal briefing with

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Speaker 2: either SAPs or the Essay, the f or both together,

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Speaker 2: they would tell you the opposite. And in fact, over

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Speaker 2: the past month. They did tell us exactly the opposite,

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Speaker 2: and they told us that it would be intelligence driven,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. But what I've seen so far was the

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Speaker 2: first day. Obviously you've got all this media attention everything,

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Speaker 2: so I understand that it's not really kicking down doors

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Speaker 2: on that day, but that they were just executing basic

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Speaker 2: search warrants. But according to from what I know, they

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Speaker 2: haven't seen well hardly any or any illicit firearms, no

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Speaker 2: significant drug stashes. Shooting has been continuing unadated. I mean,

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Speaker 2: in the past hour, I'm aware of at least six

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Speaker 2: people that have been shot in the KP Flats, So

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Speaker 2: so yeah, I'm not I mean, we can go into

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Speaker 2: a lot of depth. The point is just that they're

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Speaker 2: not working with community safety structures, they're not working with

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Speaker 2: CPF adequately, and unfortunately, I must be very honest, some

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Speaker 2: of the CPFs, especially in the KP flats, have been

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Speaker 2: infiltrated by gangs them well, so I'm not so sure

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Speaker 2: you can always trust them either, which makes it very

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Speaker 2: very difficult because you've got good people in both CPS

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Speaker 2: and in the police, but now you've got this quite

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Speaker 2: a messy so called operation prospert.

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Speaker 1: What should we be doing then? In do you think

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Speaker 1: I understand you were Mitch's plain earlier today? I'm not sure.

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Speaker 1: If you're still there and news indicate that there are

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Speaker 1: three people who have been short dead in a mass

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Speaker 1: shooting incident, I think we officially qualified as a mass

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Speaker 1: shooting if it's three people or more, and if you're

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Speaker 1: able to give us any more information on that, you're

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Speaker 1: most welcome to of course.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean there was another incident just now

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Speaker 2: where I think three or four people were shot. The

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Speaker 2: other one with three people was a little bit earlier.

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Speaker 2: So what should we be expecting? I think first of all,

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Speaker 2: we need to stop worrying about the numbers of soldiers etc.

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Speaker 2: If this whole process is intelligence driven and prosecution, it

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Speaker 2: shouldn't matter how many soldiers or how many cops we have.

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Speaker 2: You can with a highly skilled team of operators, you

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Speaker 2: could be quite successfully targeting specific kingpins, removing them from

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Speaker 2: the street. And if we had decent intelligence, there's no

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Speaker 2: reason why we shouldn't have been able to already see

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Speaker 2: masses of firearms, drugs, etc. Instead, there's this hap hazard

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Speaker 2: kind of a convoy that drives up and down in

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Speaker 2: certain areas, stops at a house we search. I mean,

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Speaker 2: let's use the two of us. Let's pretend the two

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Speaker 2: of US Africa or our criminals, and we've got a

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Speaker 2: basic drone for example. I'll be busy flying the drone

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Speaker 2: and telling you how Africa just hide our stash around

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Speaker 2: the corner. They're going to turn left now closer to us.

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Speaker 2: And I know I'm simplifying it extremely, but the point

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Speaker 2: is these gangs are well organized. They operate like proper enterprises.

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Speaker 2: They are professional at what they do. I don't know

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Speaker 2: who were kidding here. At the moment, the operation feels

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Speaker 2: like a visible policing exercise instead of something that will

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Speaker 2: show any kind of sustainable result.

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Speaker 1: The previous deployment, which would have been pre COVID, I

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Speaker 1: think helen Zella was still premier of the Western Cape.

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Speaker 1: In fact, we had SA ANDDF semi permanently deployed to

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Speaker 1: certain areas at least for a defined period of time

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Speaker 1: where every morning, as you are walking past the pavements

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Speaker 1: or the streets of certain communities, you saw the South

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Speaker 1: African National Defense Force. This is not the approach they

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Speaker 1: are taking this time. Was that more effective? Should we

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Speaker 1: have that more in place than we are now in

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Speaker 1: missiles plane for a couple of hours, and then once

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Speaker 1: we're done here, we're moving on to Mannenburg, We're moving

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Speaker 1: on to google Ato and so forth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it could help in some parts in

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Speaker 2: terms of stability, it still doesn't eradicate the deeper issue. Now,

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Speaker 2: most of the gangs just adjust their modus operandi. As

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Speaker 2: soon as they see soldiers and more police occupying the area,

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Speaker 2: they adjust their modus operandi and they continue to do

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Speaker 2: business elsewhere. I mean, you've seen in the media how

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Speaker 2: some of the gangs have actually welcomed the fact that

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Speaker 2: the army are deploying, saying that they welcome it because

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Speaker 2: it even makes them a little bit safer. They'll just

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Speaker 2: adjust their business plans accordingly. So yeah, I guess in

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Speaker 2: terms of stabilization it would help slightly, but it still

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Speaker 2: doesn't solve the problem. There has been no s and

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Speaker 2: EF deployment in the past, and research shows us this

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Speaker 2: that has shown a significant sustainable impact every single time.

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Speaker 2: As soon as soldiers leave, they then see a massive

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Speaker 2: increase in violence. Again, so what should be done is

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Speaker 2: that this time period of the deployment, let's say up

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Speaker 2: until March April of twenty twenty seven, should be used

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Speaker 2: as an opportunity for SAPs to up there game, make

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Speaker 2: sure that they resource properly, trained, properly they can clean

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Speaker 2: up in terms of corruption so that when the SA

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Speaker 2: and DF withdraw from the area, SAPs is able to

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Speaker 2: seamlessly take over. And from what I've heard and the

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Speaker 2: senior managers and sets that I've spoken with, that is

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Speaker 2: certainly not the approach at the moment, and I think

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Speaker 2: that at the moment, as I said earlier, it's more

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Speaker 2: of a visible policing exercise than an actual intelligence led operation.

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Speaker 1: You chaired the Portfolio Committee in the National Assembly, what

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Speaker 1: can you do to bring this matter across to their

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Speaker 1: SAPs that they need to take full advantage of the

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Speaker 1: allocated time for the deployment of the National Defense Force

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Speaker 1: in order for them to up their game.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're obviously going to continue to push for that.

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Speaker 2: We've had three sessions with the SNDF along with SAPs,

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Speaker 2: some more than the others at times over the past

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Speaker 2: let's say four to six weeks, will continue. I think

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Speaker 2: what worries me is that I've asked both the Minister

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Speaker 2: of Defense as well as the Police Minister to indicate

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Speaker 2: to me how they will measure success for Operation Prosper

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Speaker 2: And they couldn't answer me in all three of the

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Speaker 2: scenarios that we sketched, and all three times that I

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Speaker 2: asked them this question, they kept on telling me that

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Speaker 2: they're ready to operate and that they would communicate their

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Speaker 2: success to us. In fact, in the last engagement, the

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Speaker 2: Police Minister said that we should develop their measures for

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Speaker 2: success to determine whether they're making progress or not. Now

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Speaker 2: it's quite worrying if they don't have such KPIs yet,

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Speaker 2: but nevertheless, we will now actually start working on that.

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Speaker 2: I don't think they would expect it, but we'll work

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Speaker 2: on that and then ask them what is the return

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Speaker 2: on investment on all of this money that you're spending

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Speaker 2: and how can we rather better or improve that expenditure?

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Speaker 1: Final question. Then we just have confirmation that a fourth

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Speaker 1: person has died in that shooting in Mitchar's Plain earlier today.

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Speaker 1: Three others are wounded. You said you know of at

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Speaker 1: least six Where would the other two or three people

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Speaker 1: have been shot in the Kpe flats today?

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Speaker 2: So there was an incident, the first one that the

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Speaker 2: one you're speaking of now, I believe is in Portland's

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Speaker 2: at the moment that scene are still so to say warm.

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Speaker 2: And then there was another incident this morning in Philippia,

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Speaker 2: I believe, and I think there was another incident in

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Speaker 2: west Ridge or East Ridge. I don't have it in

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Speaker 2: front of me now, so I might be giving you

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Speaker 2: the wrong information. The point is they've been several in

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Speaker 2: the Cape Flats throughout the day.

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Speaker 1: It win of course following up with SAPs Ian, thank

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Speaker 1: you very much. Ian Cameron, Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee

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Speaker 1: on Police in the National Assembly,