Leader of Xiluva political party, Bongani Baloyi is urging Gauteng residents and travellers to disobey instructions from the newly-formed Gauteng Crime Prevention Wardens, if members of the unit are not backed-up by the police.
Speaking to IOL, Baloyi insisted that the group are not sufficiently trained to operate independently, without the backing of other law enforcement agencies like the South African Police Service (SAPS).
“They cannot work by themselves, as they have been doing in some parts of the province. They are randomly stopping and search people, pretending to be police officers. They must never operate independently, they must operate within the supervision of the police,” he said.
“These are people who have been trained for three months. They don’t understand and appreciate the law to the extent that one should when they are designated as a peace officer or traffic police.”
Baloyi revealed that his party will be heading to court seeking an order declaring the Gauteng Crime Prevention Wardens an illegal entity.
“We are preparing to go to court to declare this unit an illegal formation because they lack understanding of the law. Where you find traffic wardens, for example in the City of Joburg, they do not carry firearms and they do not even drive,” said Baloyi, the former ActionSA Gauteng chairperson.
“Now you have these young people who only got three months training, who are driving high-powered vehicles which are only given to specialised forces in traffic police or the South African Police Service,” he said.
“What training did they receive? Did they do the defensive driving courses? Who are they going to be chasing with these high-powered vehicles? The more we dig into this issue, the more we are finding grey areas and things that are making us extremely concerned and justified in our approach to pursue this in court.”
Baloyi said the court actions seeks to stop the Gauteng provincial government “from running rogue by forming militia groups”.
“At the heart of our court action is about this illegal force. We will be able to provide more information regarding the court action. We must stop the Gauteng provincial government from running rogue by forming militia groups,” he said.
Last week, IOL reported that Justice Minister Ronald Lamola has conferred Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s crime prevention wardens, which are also known as amaPanyaza, with the same legal status as the Gauteng provincial traffic officers.
Lamola’s spokesperson, Chrispin Phiri said although they were legally being designated as traffic officers, they could still fight crime as law enforcement officers, but their powers were limited when compared with the SA Police Service.
Lamola provided an update on the status of the 6,000 crime prevention wardens, which were established by Lesufi and Community Safety MEC Faith Mazibuko in February in a bid to combat crime in communities.
The crime prevention officers received three months of training at a farm in Cullinan, and have recently made headlines for reportedly crashing over 22 BMW vehicles that they had been issued with.
Baloyi said before designated as traffic officers, the amaPanyaza were already doing the work of policing without a legal mandate.
The Gauteng government had written to Lamola in June, seeking the minister to designate the Crime Prevention Wardens as peace officers in terms of Section 334 of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977.
IOL