Honourable Members,
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is being deployed as a force multiplier to the South African Police Service to address gangsterism in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng, and illicit mining in Gauteng and the North West.
The SANDF deployment is necessary to complement the efforts of SAPS in tackling these crimes and bringing stability to communities.
The SANDF will be deployed in support of the SAPS, operating under police command, with clear rules of engagement and for specific time-limited objectives.
The SANDF may, for example, be called on by the police to provide protection in high-risk operations, or to support cordon-and-search operations against armed criminals.
Soldiers may also help to secure critical infrastructure, freeing SAPS members to focus on investigations, arrests and building cases that lead to successful prosecutions.
The deployment of the SANDF will take place alongside other measures, such as strengthening anti-gang units and illegal mining task teams. The police will also be working with the National Prosecuting Authority on multi-disciplinary task teams to target the leadership, finances, firearms and logistics of these criminal networks.
Through this support we aim to achieve a significant reduction in serious and violent crime across targeted areas of deployment with the neutralisation of gang violence and illicit mining.
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