Metro Police officials and the South African Police Service (SAPS) are “working well together” and their relationship is “good”‚ the parliamentary committee on police heard on Wednesday. The committee was briefed on the state of the metro police services and the levels of cooperation with the SAPS.Major-General Nobesuthu Masiye told the committee that the aim of the collaboration between the metro police and SAPS is to “create a secure and safe environment for all South African residents”.“There are always lots of factors to consider‚ but the SAPS and chiefs of the metro police are working to close all the gaps to ensure that we operate properly.”She added that when there are joint operations between the SAPS and the metro police‚ the SAPS will always take charge of the operations.“We often see overlapping of duties‚ particularly within the specialised units.“We don’t always have integrated operations on a daily basis and sometimes the metro police carry out their own operations‚” Masiye said.As per Section 64K of the SAPS Act‚ there are six established metro police services‚ namely in Durban‚ Johannesburg‚ Ekurhuleni‚ Tshwane‚ Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay.However‚ it was noted at the briefing that although the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Police Department was officially established in 2012‚ it was has not been fully operational due to “internal challenges”.Some of the key examples of integrated operations include: joint road blocks‚ festive season operations‚ opening of parliament (Cape Town) and the policing of sports events.Some of the committee members were‚ however‚ not convinced of the “need” for metro police officials.Freedom Front Plus’ Pieter Groenewald highlighted his concerns regarding the “personality” of metro police members as they “often accept bribes”‚ and questioned whether psychometric tests are done on the members.“Do we have psychometric tests because not everyone has the personality to be a police officer as we can see in the way they address the residents?” he asked the various metro police bosses.“We have seen on numerous occasions on social media‚ YouTube and such‚ that people are pulled off‚ and they just don’t receive any answers as to why.“These sorts of issues arise concerns as to why we actually need metro police‚” he said...