Former Joburg safety MMCs say don't hire foreigners, rather fix JMPD

Former MMCs of public safety in the City of Johannesburg believe the establishment of a stronger unit in the JMPD and addressing crime with limited resources at their disposal could be a step in the right direction.

This is the sentiment of David Tembe and Michael Sun who have both previously led the city's public safety portfolio.

This follows new mayor Dada Morero's retracted suggestion that the city might consider recruiting qualified and properly documented foreigners into the JMPD to help with bridging the language barriers which frustrate police when investigating crimes involving foreigners.

While some hailed the proposal, the former MMC Tembe, who was JMPD police chief before his stint at public safety, said the real problem was that police were using what he termed a “fishnet” to fight crime.

“They go and surround innocent people, irritating them, instead of using what we call a spear to target suspects, for example, who are dealing in drugs. You need to have specialised units like in New York for different types of crimes,” he said.

Prof Loren Landau from the African Centre for Migration & Society said the mayor's proposal was fascinating.

“There's clearly a need to reach out to all residents. Police forces in Germany, the US, the UK and elsewhere have done this by hiring people who look more like those they are serving,” he said.

He said South Africa has similarly recognised the need to have a diverse force that reflects its population.

“While it may be politically controversial to give public sector jobs to people of immigrant backgrounds, we are not in a position to overlook any opportunity to make our streets safer and our communities more inclusive,” he added.

Landau said there was distrust between the police and many city residents regardless of their nationality. “Building bonds between law enforcement and the population is a step forward for security, law enforcement and social inclusion,” he said.

Tembe added that during his tenure before his organisation was ousted from the council, he had already started planning on the establishment of the unit and the meeting was already in place with then home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi and the police.

“In Johannesburg, when I was MMC I had a meeting with the mayor and the minister of home affairs. We were supposed to form a special unit, and it couldn't be JMPD only, that was supposed to deal with immigrants,” he said. He said as a seasoned police officer, they were planning on using new handheld devices rather that would help them verify documents the foreigners produced. 

“Those were the things we were discussing training the metro police to work with. Metro police are not trained in terms of identifying foreigners who might have fraudulent documents, but if you have a handheld device it will pick that up.

“First, we need to train the metro police in terms of immigration. Most importantly these days, you have technology that you can programme into a handheld device,” he said.

Sun said that without criticising the mayor, he thinks his utterances were not thought-through and provoked many unnecessary emotions, especially in a country with high unemployment.

“And the mayor wants to go out and disregard our own South Africans. That's maybe something that is very insensitive but I think the focus here is to fight crime by using scientific methods, to better use our resources and formulate strategies to tackle those crimes that are hot in different areas,” he said.

Sun said when he was the MMC of public safety, they had their strategy and knew how to fight crime with technology.

“We were smooth running, well equipped and well operated, intelligent. We had similar challenges, but the resolution of the city does not lie in hiring foreign nationals in the JMPD to fight crime.

Sun said when fighting crime, one needs to understand it, which resources you have as a mayor to deal with crime. He noted that while addressing crime, there was also a need to deal with the victims.

“He simply just wants to address the one aspect, and that is to prevent foreign nationals from speaking other languages in front of the police officers or to understand what they are saying. That, certainly for me, will not resolve the crime.

“We certainly have many different ethnic groups, never mind the foreign nationals, in Joburg. One should need to look at how we enforce our laws,” said Sun.

Tembe said during his tenure both as MMC and chief of the metro police department they had to deal with a plethora of crime. He said the crimes that involve foreign nationals are hijacking of buildings, human trafficking and selling of drugs.

“So those were some of the issues we were dealing with. When it comes to assault or murder, during my time when I was the chief, that type of brutality was done by the Zimbabweans and Mozambicans. They do house invasions — you will see the cruelty.”

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