Police officers do not view Community Police Forums as informers, says the Western Cape Department of Community Safety.
|||Cape Town - Police officers don’t see Community Police Forums (CPFs) as “impimpis” (informers) despite statements by the national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega, says the Western Cape Department of Community Safety.
Head Gilbert Lawrence said they had never heard police officers on the ground complain about CPFs before or since Phiyega made the “unfortunate” statement.
He was addressing the standing committee of community safety in the provincial legislature.
Phiyega told the same committee last month that CPFs were used as “oversight and inspection mechanisms or impimpis to check how many cars are driving out of a station” and it was “disheartening”.
Lawrence said the province had since shown the police on national level what information they were collecting and they were reporting to the police’s provincial office on a monthly basis.
He said a good relationship existed between the department, CPFs and the police.
The department last year started its pilot project to use 30 CPFs for the collection of information on conditions of police stations, staffing numbers and resources.
The department had added 33 CPFs between May and July and hoped all 150 CPFs would join.
Chief director for civilian oversight Gideon Morris said the department knew for the first time who the cluster managers were and how many sector vehicles there were. CPFs had reported 573 visits to police stations between May and July.
Cape Times