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FSA meets with new FS MEC of Community Safety, Roads and Transport

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The Rural Safety Committee of Free State Agriculture (FSA) convened with the newly appointed
Free State MEC of Community Safety, Roads, and Transport, Mr. Jabu Mbalula, and his team of
directors on July 11th. The meeting aimed to foster cooperation to tackle rural safety and crime in
farming communities, in collaboration with the SAPS. Free State Agriculture extends its
congratulations and best wishes to the MEC on his new role.

Dr. Jane Buys, Safety risk analyst of FSA, states that FSA has brought five (5) important issues
to the MEC’s attention which the organization considers critical to addressing rural safety and
crimes more effectively. The issues are:

  1. The effective implementation of the National Rural Safety Strategy in the Free State,
    which must focus on the fact that each Rural Safety Coordinator of the Police at an
    “urban/rural mix” police station must have an assigned patrol vehicle to carry out his/her
    activities effectively. The capacity, manpower and vehicles of the livestock theft units must
    also be actively addressed;
  2. The passage of two (2) important draft laws, namely the National Animal Pounds Bill,
    which obliges municipalities to establish impoundments in order to impound stray animals
    that are responsible for car accidents and also destroy pasture. Quarantine fences should
    also be introduced here, especially at the RSA/Lesotho border, to effectively address
    biosecurity on animals. Secondly, attention must be paid to the Livestock Theft
    Amendment Act of 1959, which is known as the “Controlled Animal Bill” where better
    measures and guidelines are put in place in order to regulate livestock speculators as well
    as the transport and sale of livestock;
  3. The actual establishment of a patrolable 4×4 border road at the RSA/Lesotho border
    where the Department of Public Works must sort out the aspect in collaboration with the
    Department so that all law enforcement agencies namely SANW, SAPS, BMA as well as
    farming communities can jointly launch operations and actions to effectively address
    crimes;
  4. The Forums that already exist, namely the Border Safeguarding Forum headed by the
    SANW, the Cross Border Crime Prevention Forum as well as the Police’s priority
    committee meetings at all levels must be able to function effectively with the necessary
    actions and planning operations that emerge from them must come;
  5. The audit and restructuring of the Animal Identification System (AIS) in accordance
    with the Animal Identification Act (AIDA) (Act 6 of 2002), where the police also have
    access to the system to ensure that persons registered on the system are indeed farmers,
    and that it is limited to South African citizens.
    Pieter Kemp, vice-chairman of FSA’s Rural Safety Committee, says the MEC was also informed
    about FSA’s private investigators on livestock theft initiative and the successes they are
    achieving. The initiative, which operates under the leadership of Peet Swanepoel as coordinator, assists the Police’s livestock theft units in the investigation of livestock theft incidents. FSA’s AIMS (Animal ID, Movement and Safety) traceability system, where livestock owners can track their livestock with better technology and livestock can be monitored throughout the value chain, was also briefly pointed out to the MEC.