Sheriff with zero tolerance towards trouble spots

A new sheriff has asserted position in town and maintains a stance against all evil plaguing Limpopo communities, including Police officials reportedly seen visiting city brothels in unmarked cars for self aggrandisement and okapis instead of ballpoint pens in the hands of school kids.
Transport and Community Safety MEC Dickson Masemola might be relatively new in a position that he was tasked with some two months back, but he appears to be adept with the effects of the language of criminals ravaging communities and although he could be regarded to be a new broom sweeping clean, is fighting to rid the city and province of the crime wave that has been gripping it for some time now.
In an interview prior to Tuesday evening’s community and stakeholders’ meet for residents of Penina Park and Ivy Park held in Ivydale, he declared an intolerance towards perceived no-go zones and trouble spots in the city and elsewhere in Limpopo. He added that it couldn’t be allowed.
The reason why he was present that evening was fuelled by his concern about the general outcry about matters requiring attention and showing that they were taking instructions very seriously, he indicated. He dreamt of a Limpopo free of any form of criminality and people living without any fear, as per the current state of affairs. According to him it was realisable and something they were working towards.
During the interview he raised concern about hotspots in the provincial capital marked by dangerous trio crimes, emerging gangsterism at school level and within the community as well as robberies linked to residential burglaries that have become the talk of the day and, equally worrisome, the sale of expired foodstuffs.
He emphasised a concern about learners in town being used by drug lords to peddle substances and in the same vein produced a photo of dagga, okapis, a home-made knife, a kitchen knife and a small axe confiscated at a school during an operation in Giyani earlier that day. “We expect a child to take a ballpoint pen or a pencil to school, not an okapi, not a knife,” he exclaimed. “This seems to be a general social problem that is beginning to characterise our schools.”
To the question on where Limpopo went wrong, he responded saying somewhere somehow society might have lost moral compass and innermost feeling of life, evidenced by social illnesses suggesting an emergence of lawlessness. He was troubled about the possibility of unimaginable circumstances in years to come if issues were not confronted and law and social order not restored, according to Masemola. He referred to what happened in Gauteng days before, saying once a Police force was confronted and overpowered it meant collapse of the state and a situation that would lead to chaos, mayhem and misery.
“We can’t allow South Africa to follow that route. We’ve got to stand firm and restore order, whether people like it or not.”
Masemola expressed his personal view when asked about a time frame to matters taking a turn for the worst by saying that he didn’t want to attach a period to it, but that developments as society evolved indicated that a very different era from that of the past had been reached and that there were external forces at play that might be planting ideas in the minds of society which they found comfort in, to the extent that it became permanent features contrary to what life was supposed to be like.
Masemola, who raised the issue of an improvement currently observed in terms of the impact of the work of the Police based on feedback from communities demanding a re-doubling of efforts, simultaneously lauded the successes of recent intelligence-driven and crime combating initiatives as well as ongoing Operation Swara Tsotsi launched in the city 41 days ago.

Story: YOLANDE NEL
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