IFP president Velenkosi Hlabisa calls for decentralisation of policing powers to provinces. Picture: Khaya Ngwenya / Independent Newspapers
Durban — The IFP has called for policing powers to be decentralised from Pretoria to the provinces.
Outlining his vision for a safe and crime-free South Africa, during an interview with the Daily News, IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa said one of the effective ways to decisively deal with crime in the country was to hand over policing powers to the provinces.
He said the government should accept that the system of centralising policing powers under Minister Bheki Cele was failing as violent crimes continued unabated.
“If the government is serious about ending crime in this country, it is time to hand over policing powers to the provinces. The MECs of safety and community liaison are just ceremonial figures who have no teeth to bite criminals. They have no powers to deploy or have input on how many new recruits are needed because all those powers are with Bheki Cele.”
Hlabisa said that if the nine provinces were given the powers to devise their own crime-fighting strategies, the crime rate would drop.
He said the money Cele and his team spent on flying from Pretoria to crime scenes would be better used in crime-fighting if policing powers were decentralised.
He cited the rift between the national government and Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, over the crime units Lesufi established to fight crime in the province, as a typical example of the problem of centralising powers. The national government was said to be refusing to grant Lesufi’s brigade the power and authority to fight crime.
Hlabisa said South Africans should not forget that the county had three spheres of government because of the IFP and its former president Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi who had fought hard during Codesa (Convention for Democratic South Africa) talks in the early 1990s while the ANC was pushing for more unitary state where all the powers would be centralised under the national government.
The IFP and other parties had advocated for federalism during the Codesa talks, allowing provinces a degree of autonomy.
Hlabisa said that through Buthelezi’s relentless fight, the ANC had made some concessions and agreed to create provinces and municipalities but had kept key powers with the central government.
He promised that would change under the IFP government.
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