The Ministry of Police and AgriSA will work together to develop a plan of action to create safety in farming communities.
“We must attend to farm killings as well as attacks… but equally, we must prevent any form of disruption with regard to production that takes place at the level of the farms,” Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said on Wednesday.
The Minister was addressing a media briefing at the South African Police Service (SAPS) headquarters in Tshwane on Wednesday. The briefing followed a meeting between the Minister and AgriSA to discuss the National Rural Safety Strategy.
“We are going to implement the plan of action that we will devise and we are going to make it public. Our programme of safety
is to ensure that there is safety in rural areas, order and accessibility to the police in those areas,” Minister Mbalula said.
Once the plan has been put together, it will be approved by the Minister and a memorandum of understanding will be signed to concretise the action plan. It is expected that this will transpire in approximately two weeks.
The plan must include increased police visibility. SAPS further committed to sharpen its approach to rural safety and farmers must form an integral part of that approach.
A total of 1 181 police reservists have been enrolled for training and will be deployed across the rural areas.
