AfriForum held a national patrol on 12 March 2021 to increase visibility across the country. These national patrols take place three times a year.
Thousands of AfriForum members and institutions such as private neighbourhood watches, security companies, community policing forums, recovery services, police stations, local businesses, paramedics and traffic officers participated in these patrols which made it such a huge success.
The statistics at national level for the national patrols is:
Number of AfriForum neighbourhood watch members involved: 2 302
Number of participants: 1 641
Number of vehicles: 2 229
Number of kilometres travelled: 122 945.3 km
Incidents handled: 178
The aim of the national patrols is to mobilise communities against crime. Furthermore, the objective is also to improve higher visibility and cooperation between safety roleplayers at a national, as well as local level.
“With crime increasing drastically and government’s failure to address crime in an active manner, it is important to have good relations between safety structures. The low crime rate that has been recorded after the patrol is a clear indication that these kind of patrols make a difference,” says Hillel Coetzer, AfriForum’s Head of Safety for the northern region. “AfriForum’s neighbourhood watches are there to make the police stronger and all the actions that are driven by neighbourhood watches comply with the prescribed guidelines and take place within the framework of the law.”
“We cannot depend on government alone to look after our safety. Become involved with local safety structures in your neighbourhood or join AfriForum today and become part of the solution,” says Joseph Renaud, AfriForum’s Safety Head for the central region.
“National patrols contribute directly to purposeful actions, cooperation, concord as well as the raising of morale and in the south region we experienced it firsthand. Operational successes were at the order of the day and good relations between AfriForum and the SAPS as well as other institutions were established and developed during this event. The statistics speaks for itself and we will continue to build on this,” concludes Mark Kuys, AfriForum’s Head of Safety for the south region.
Become involved with your local AfriForum branch: SMS your name to 45353 (R1 per SMS).
