Home South African Bheki Cele to kick off nationwide safer festive season inspection tour

Bheki Cele to kick off nationwide safer festive season inspection tour

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Police Minister Bheki Cele will on Sunday embark on an annual nationwide safer festive season inspection tour in the country’s nine provinces as part of overall efforts by the SAPS to tighten the grip on contact and violent crimes this festive season.

Police Minister Bheki Cele. Picture: Bongani Shilulbane/African News Agency (ANA)

POLICE Minister Bheki Cele will on Sunday embark on an annual nationwide safer festive season inspection tour in the country’s nine provinces as part of overall efforts by the SAPS to tighten the grip on contact and violent crimes this festive season.

The National Safer Festive Season Operation was launched in October by the police under the theme: “Extending our reach through blue light visibility”.

The inspection tour will kick off in the Limpopo province on Sunday and end in KZN at the end of the year.

Cele said: “The Nationwide Safer Festive Season Inspection Tour will focus on visible policing and conducting special crime awareness and prevention operations; targeting crimes prevalent during the festive period such as gender-based violence and crimes against children; border security; and contravention of road and traffic regulations.”

Cele will together with the SAPS management team at national and respective provinces assess the effectiveness of the resources channelled to areas where they are most needed to ensure police deal decisively with persistent crimes.

“We urge South Africans to remain alert and be aware of their surroundings at all times to avoid being easy targets for criminals. The country’s officers in blue in all provinces will be at hand. Their respective safer festive season plans are already in full swing and will be intensified as the year comes to a close,” Cele said.

He added that every safer festive season plan is unique to each province.

“These plans are not a one-size-fits-all, instead the operations are tailored to the needs of the province and are based on their crime situations. I am sure the police will give criminals a hard time and squeeze out the space for anyone with criminal intent,” Cele said.

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