Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation

An Analysis of Safety and Security Developments in the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Area

by
Mzi Memeza

Report prepared as part of the City Safety Project (funded by the Open Society Foundation for South Africa).

Mzi Memeza is a former Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

Introduction and Background

The wave of structural changes in the sphere of local government has created various challenges for local government's mandate as a 'primary role player in safety and security and crime prevention' as envisioned in the White Paper "In Service of Safety" (1998) published by the Department of Safety and Security. The Municipal Structures Act sets out a legislative framework for the establishment of a one tier system with a single metropolitan council having original powers for each metropolitan area, although the scope is left for establishing sub-structures or ward councils to enable decentralised decision making, and to facilitate community access and participation. In terms of the Act, it is envisaged that by the end of 2000 all the municipal local councils in the Johannesburg Metropolitan area must be rationalised from six councils to one overall Johannesburg Metropolitan local Council. Once this single system is in place the Local Integrated Development Plans (LIDP's) kick in, ensuring that local policy issues are no longer processed through individual councils – but instead, decisions will be made on a metro-wide basis.

Coupled with this, a decision about the boundaries of the new Johannesburg unicity has already been made.1 The new boundaries present serious challenges for the provision and extension of safety and security functions in the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan area. The impact of these structural changes on safety and security will be considered here and also pertinent is the decision to establish a Metro Police Department (MPD) in the Johannesburg metropolitan area in terms of the South African Police Amendment Act of 1998. The MPD, more than any structure in the new unicity, creates the opportunity for new and innovative ways of providing safety and security for the city. In terms of legislation, the MPD is expected to police road traffic and related laws; police municipal by-laws; and perform visible policing and related crime prevention functions. These functions are currently being performed in a fragmented fashion by the various clusters of the GJMC and MLCs with their existing budgets. The report also attempts to look at the current state of the provision of safety and security and asks whether the GJMC and its various clusters and the MLC have positioned themselves for these challenges.

The Structure of Metropolitan Government in Johannesburg

The Local Government Transition Act (LGTA) of 1996 established metropolitan government systems comprising elected metropolitan councils and metropolitan local councils. The LGTA gave metropolitan areas considerable scope to develop their own arrangements for governance – the differences in the way power and responsibility is centralised in the four metros and is decentralised to local councils is one example.2 Service Agreements entered into between individual councils and a metropolitan council have played a role in allowing centralisation or decentralisation of functions and services to take place. Whilst this is the case in cities like Cape Town and Durban, in other cities such as Johannesburg, there is already a strong centralisation of safety and security functions. The nature of metro-to-local council relations is influenced by local government politics.

Structures Dealing with Safety and Security in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council

The GJMC is the co-ordinating body of four Local Councils (the Western, Southern, Eastern and Northern Local Councils) in Johannesburg.

At the GJMC Metro level, one of the six current divisions is the Public Safety division headed by the a Strategic Executive officer. The Strategic Executive officer for public safety co-ordinates the activities of the following clusters:

At the local council level, most councils in Johannesburg have an Executive Officer for Security Services. The local council's security services have a limited definition of tasks and concerns, such as:

However the officials3 in the local councils' security services argue that in reality they sometimes exceed these mandates and perform a wider range of security services, frequently 'encroaching' on the jurisdictional functions of the SAPS.4 In many instances, the fact that local council security services overstep their strict mandate is due to the lack of effective SAPS capacity and the Local Councils' commitment to building partnerships and supporting community policing. Some officials5 argue that Local Council security activities therefore, in effect entail:

The Johannesburg Metro council does not have inherent powers of jurisdiction over competencies such as traffic, rescue and disaster management, fire and security. These can be executed by either the metro council or the respective local councils. An exception is fire which is a provincial competency and provincial governments' elect whether or not to devolve this task to the metro councils. In the Johannesburg metropolitan area- fire, traffic, rescue and disaster management are centralised at the metro council's public safety and emergency services office,6 otherwise in terms of the security function, both the metro and the four local councils have dual competency. The sharing of security functions seems more to be predicated on practical concerns than anything else, so that in principle, the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council's safety and security arrangement has, since the last local government elections, been modelled more or less on the lines of a unicity. In the words of Hillow Maeko, the Strategic Executive Officer of the Public Safety and Emergency Services office:

In terms of the agreement with the MLCs all safety issues are the responsibility of the Metro and they do it on behalf of the MLCs. If you go to the MLCs you will not find a traffic officer that belongs to an MLC, you won't find an ambulance that belongs to an MLC or a fire- fighter or whatever. (Maeko, 2000)

Given the limited role of the MLCs in safety provision, reflected in their budgets, provision is made for outsourcing some of their functions, such as some aspects of guarding and access control. The move towards outsourcing, particularly in the security divisions has been a common phenomenon in the four local councils over the past two years. Sean Coetzee who is Manager of Security Services in the Southern Metropolitan Local Council (SMLC) points out that:

the past five years we have actually operated in a way that has prepared us for this reality. (Coetzee, 2000)

This has been the case with almost all the MLCs in the Greater Johannesburg metropolitan area, with the Eastern and Southern MLCs being the most affected. Due to a demand for more personnel in the enforcement and security divisions of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council's Inner city office, the Eastern MLCs staff were drawn in to work in the inner city, leaving the bulk of security functions in the East to be outsourced. According to Jorrie Jordan, Head of Public Safety in the Eastern MLC:

Guards who were working in my department, who have been trained as peace officers, were moved to the Metro. And when they started with the inner city project, they were asked to go and help to enforce the by-laws on street trading in the inner city since they have been trained as peace officers. (Jordan, 2000)

The same applies with the Southern MLC which has mostly outsourced7 its security functions, because of a demand for the Southern MLC to provide more personnel for the inner city's by-law enforcement office. Consequently the guarding of most council installations in these two MLCs is done by private security companies.

In the five years since the Greater Johannesburg Metro came into existence the management of core safety and security services and finances has been on a metropolitan basis. However, there remains a need for a balance between centralisation and decentralisation and there is debate as to whether aspects of safety and security such as crime prevention and rescue and disaster management, are not best managed on a local scale. Other functions such as municipal by-law enforcement, traffic policing, the provision of ambulance services etc. require centralised provision because these issues require a common metro-wide approach.

Towards a Strategic Approach for Johannesburg

In the first two months of 1999, an intensive strategy process led by the Transformation Lekgotla (a grouping of senior councillors from the Metro level and the four Local Councils), the city Manager and the Transformation Manager resulted in the development and approval of the iGoli 2002 plan for Johannesburg.

iGoli 2002 is Johannesburg's three year plan, developed to address the challenges of financial, institutional arrangements and service delivery. The plan was motivated by two key problems facing Greater Johannesburg, namely financial crisis and poor institutional design. It was agreed that that a unified, metropolitan-wide initiative was necessary to strategically focus on the critical problems facing the city. According to official sources, the experience of concentrating on a set of key issues on a metro-wide basis has proven to be essential to the process of restoring the institutional and financial health of the city.8

The GJMC has committed itself to the development of an "integrated urban safety strategy" for the metro area. This process has stalled at the stage of business planning, and the next step is for the strategy development process to commence. Part of the business plan refers to the establishment of the MPD and the need to develop an integrated and coherent enforcement strategy for the city.

Crime Prevention in the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Area

The Safer Cities Office

The role of local government in initiating and driving crime prevention initiatives is explicitly recognised in the White Paper on Safety and Security. 'Safer Cities' are metro-based initiatives that look at formulating and driving crime prevention projects at the city level.9 The Johannesburg Safer Cities Project was started in 1997 as a collaborative effort between the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS/Habitat). It also includes interested local, provincial and national role players on interdepartmental and inter-agency approaches. The project aims to reduce crime as well as lessen the fear of crime, creating a safer urban environment where economic enterprises and community life can flourish. The project intended to coordinate crime prevention initiatives at Metropolitan level, within the framework of the National Crime Prevention Strategy and to capacitate local government in dealing with crime and its effects. The Metro council plays an administrative and co-ordination role in the Safer Cities projects. It's multi-faceted role in crime prevention is described below by Elwyn Pelser:

We must be guided by what is required and what the job profile of the Safer City is and its role. Safer City can play a very important role in terms of crime prevention and situational crime prevention. It would have a very primary role if it is inside the MPS, in the Chief of Police's office. The Chief of police is going to give it the type of strategic positioning to continue with its research, participate in social crime prevention programmes and also keep the link between crime prevention and by-law enforcement healthy. (Pelser, 2000)

Presently the Johannesburg Safer City Office has problems which relate to staff turnover and continuity. In its three year in existence, it has three co-ordinators, and this has not only meant that continuity of projects is affected, but also that there is lack of vision and direction. According to Rory Robertshaw, the first co-ordinator of the Safer City Office:

The problem with staff turnover has also meant that crime prevention projects have come to a halt and that the fundraising capacity of the office is compromised. (Robertshaw, 2000)

Coupled with the above, Richard Brown who was also in the Safer City office at its inception in 1997 said:

There are also problems with adherence to rules and procedure from council's side. And in essence a lack of these has compromised council's commitment to the Safer City Office. (Brown, 2000)

Uriel Abrahamse who is co-ordinator of 'Street Trading Enforcement' in the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council's Inner City office, said that the problems with the Safer City office in Johannesburg relate more to structure rather than to individual co-ordinators. Whilst not derogating from the importance of having a capable co- ordinator, he stresses the need for an office that is able to survive individual resignations. To this end, a set of systems and/or structures will have to be put in place to ensure that there is continuity and sustenance of the crime prevention projects. Abrahamse points out the need for this:

Apart from the co-ordination aspect, there is a need for a development of a strategy for the Safer City office in Johannesburg. The metro council needs to lay down a set of requirements for the incumbent and thereafter create structures to ensure that the office assumes a life of its own, independent of the individual. (Abrahamse, 2000)

There is a need for a review of previous projects before the Safer City office starts again. This would enable the office to implement its crime prevention mandate on the basis of up-to-date information.

Previous crime prevention initiatives through the Safer City office have experienced communication problems with the council. It is difficult to think of a successful Safer City office without the assistance and co-operation of council, as the latter is expected to provide funding and infrastructure to the former. But beyond financial and infrastructural support, there is a need for crime prevention planning that is integrated with other council departments. One of the key problems in Johannesburg has been the isolation of the Safer Cities Office.

City Improvement Districts

The Central Johannesburg Partnership (CJP) was formed in 1992 with the main purpose of revitalizing the inner city. The CJP has since become the main initiator of City Improvement Districts (CID's) based on the North American Business Improvement Districts. These are now provided for in Gauteng legislation.10 CJP does most of its work in partnerships with Council, the public and business. Presently CJP focuses on establishing CID's business areas or the central business districts in Johannesburg. There are presently initiatives underway aimed at introducing the concept of CIDS in residential and small business areas.

CCTV

A further structural approach to crime prevention in GJMC has been the implementation of a CCTV system in the inner city. This system is in a pilot phase and there are plans to extend the initial footprint substantially. Although no independent evaluations have been done on the effectiveness of the CCTV system in reducing crime as yet, the system appears to be impacting on crime based on the number of incidents that are being responded to.

The Development of a Metropolitan Police Service

At present, there are approximately 16 law enforcement agencies/units operating in the Metro and Local Councils in Greater Johannesburg, and the lack of co-ordination between them is a major problem. The GJMC and the four MLCs each have their own by-laws which are enforced to a greater or lesser extent by their own law enforcement agencies in the areas of electricity, inspectors, fire, health, housing, inner city, licensing, parks, planning, roads and storm water, security, street trading, traffic, transport, treasury, water and waste.

Personnel and resources are under the control of the respective cluster/sub cluster head. Enforcement actions are seldom co-ordinated between the clusters/sub clusters and notices served are processed independently. The majority of these agencies are understaffed and largely ineffective.

IGoli 2002 proposes the establishment of the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD), and this proposal has already been accepted by the council. Implementation is under way. The MPD will report directly to Johannesburg's Chief Executive officer in the new Unicity model, which indicates a strong commitment to this police service.

It is hoped that the establishment of the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department will introduce clear lines of accountability, improve operational efficiency and enable focused delivery of safety and security services. The structure of the MPD will consist of four clusters:

The Safer Cities Project, described earlier, will in future be incorporated into the JMPD, in line with the MPD's statutory responsibility for crime prevention.

According to Hillow Maeko, the head of the Public Safety and Emergency Services office at the Johannesburg metro:

The legal requirements for the establishment of an MPD have been met by the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council, all that is left is for the relevant documentation to be handed over to the Gauteng Provincial Government. In terms of the Police Act, the municipal police service must have a name, a uniform distinguishing the ranks of officers and comply with national standards on a 24-hour basis. Most importantly, we have just completed the business plan covering our finances, the ones we have right now and the ones we will need to establish and maintain a municipal police service complying with the national standards determined by the National Commissioner of the SAPS. (Maeko, 2000)

The establishment of the MPD will have far reaching implications for the provision of safety and security functions. It is envisaged that with the establishment of the MPD the current Public Safety and Emergency Services office will be broken down into two sectors, one called the Metropolitan Police Service, and the other, the Emergency Management Services which will consists of:

The MPD will consist of the following clusters:

The MPD is going to see the consolidation of most of the city's law enforcement agents into one cluster. Emergency Services structures will remain largely unchanged. The MPD will be controlled and managed by its Head who in turn will report to the Chief Executive Officer of the unicity.

In the execution of its duties, the MPD should take due regard and purpose to any legislation relating to road traffic in addition to adherence to any legislation relating to traffic, the provisions of the SAPS Amendment Act, and the objectives as set out in the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) Act and Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) Act. This means that in its traffic policing functions the MPD must take into account the objectives set out in these aforementioned, and construe them as part of their key performance indicators. The RTMC Act mainly regulates management and human resource practices in the road traffic service, whilst AARTO Act is concerned with the actual enforcement of road traffic rules and the adjudication thereof.

The MPD role in policing municipal by-laws applicable means that all the by-laws currently enforced by the Johannesburg metro and the MLCs are going to be its responsibility. This happens after all the relevant by-law enforcement agencies and/or the relevant legal department(s) of the local structure(s) have furnished information regarding the enforcement of by-laws in their area of jurisdiction. The list of by-laws will serve as the basis for the MPD's municipal law enforcement focus. Generally, those by-laws that have a bearing on the safety, security and cleanliness of the area will be enforced by the MPD once it is established. Examples of such by-laws are those relating to:

It is worth noting that not all city law enforcement agencies will be part of the MPD. However many of the law enforcement agencies will need to develop strong relations with the MPD. An example of this, is the Town Planning and Building Control Unit which enforces Town Planning legislation and Regulations. In its enforcement of housing regulations, it could target and identify sites used for criminal activities.

According to Martin New, who is the Head of Town Planning and Building Control in the Southern MLC:

It is clear that we are going to work outside of the MPS as our core function is planning. So we'll remain here in the metro council. But my understanding is that we need to work very closely with the MPS. Combined operations are already happening between this department and SAPS and other enforcement agencies here in the metro council and that needs to taken to the MPS as well. Even though the MPS will be making use of the Traffic Court which has highly developed infrastructure, there is no reason why ours should not be a resource especially because we have a good record of success in civil cases. (New, 2000)

Attie Aderndorf, Urban and Crisis Manager of the Eastern MLC expressed similar views:

We are presently working in our operation with the SAPS and other by-law enforcement agencies and this should continue even when the MPS is established. (Aderndorf, 2000)

Clearly, the roles of the Safer City office and the MPD are not mutually exclusive. It is important that the role of the Safer City office in the MPD becomes a focused one and at the same time strengthens the inter-dependant relationship between by-law enforcement and crime prevention. Parallel to this should be a process as mentioned above of interaction with all the LIDP's to ensure that the overall vision of the Safer Cities and the MPD takes into account differences and identifies common features and best practise in the metro council and all the regions of the MPD.

The concerns raised about the Safer City Office being subsumed into law enforcement culture and focus of the MPD are unlikely to materialize, however it is important that we guard such possibilities and it is against this background that the Safer City office should set out to build and strengthen existing partnerships. These partnerships might take various forms-Safer City to metro council and/or Safer City to civil society partnerships.

In addition to the institutional and legal mechanism of ensuring that crime prevention is placed firmly on the MPDs agenda, it is also important that the training of the new recruits takes the question of crime prevention seriously as well. Pelser explains the training process of the MPD in detail:

There's an accredited training institution which is currently the metro Police Service academy in Johannesburg. On the date of the legal establishment of the MPD it will become the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Academy. Its accredited by the South African Police Service, the National Department of Transport and it can present the courses that are prescribed. It is only this one and the Durban one which have been accredited to provide training. The training syllabus coves a large part of the by-law enforcement material-the identification of by-law, approaches to by-law enforcement. Running parallel to this will be a community based training component dealing with schools, organisations, business, and so forth aimed at educating officers about issues of crime prevention broadly: road safety for children, community awareness campaigns, dealing with street children, and the domestic violence act. (Pelser, 2000)

In addition to these, the SAPS Amendment Act of 1998 allows for the establishment of a civilian oversight committee – with the primary responsibilities of monitoring the powers of the Chief of Police who has substantial powers and autonomy of decision making. The Gauteng MEC for Safety and Security in terms of legislation must ensure that the MPD sticks to its legislative roles – one of which is crime prevention.

The Unicity process in Johannesburg

At present, the Transformation Lekgotla (TL) is mandated - in terms of an agreement between the five councils - to perform certain key functions on behalf of each of the four metropolitan local councils. To this extent, Johannesburg already functions in some respects as a unified city, with a high degree of centralisation at Metro level.

Johannesburg is planning to implement its unicity model in 2001 after the local government elections. The scrapping of the five local council administrations and concentrating them in one centrally located body, will assist in avoiding duplication and lack of co-ordination.

The current Public Safety component will, in the future unicity, be replaced by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Conclusions

The Johannesburg metropolitan council seems to be well prepared for the unicity and its progress on the establishment of the MPD also speaks to positive prospects in areas of crime prevention, the policing of traffic by-laws and the policing of municipal by-laws. It is also worth noting that a process of reviewing by-laws is also underway in the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council. The finalisation of the first part of this process is meant to coincide with the establishment of the MPD next year. The first phase of review looks at a set of what is termed 'priority by-laws' and subjects them to constitutional scrutiny and also attempts to consolidate them from the various MLCs including Midrand.

The key challenges to be tackled are the revitalisation of the Safer Cities Office in Johannesburg, ensuring that a balance between by-law enforcement and crime prevention is struck, and lastly that LIDP's meet up to the expectation of ensuring that there is integration across MPD regions and within the council itself.

References

Ministry of Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development. White Paper on local Government. March 1998. Pretoria. Government Printer.

Ministry of Safety and Security. South African Police Amendment Act. No. 118. 1998. Pretoria. Government Printers.

Ministry of Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development. Local Government Transition Amendment Act No. 12. 1996. Pretoria. Government Printers.

Ministry of Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development. Municipal Demarcation Act No. 27. 1998. Pretoria. Government Printers.

Gauteng Provincial Government. City Improvement Districts Act No. 12. 1997. Pretoria. Government Printers.

http://www.gjmc.co.za

Notes:

1 The Johannesburg Metropolitan area, after the local government elections will cover the geographical area as demarcated by the demarcation board. This will include parts of the former Midrand and East Rand areas.

2 See Baseline Report, for a comparison of the four structures and how these variations manifests.

3 Interview with Sean Dinat, Executive Officer of Security: SMLC

4 Like the monitoring of public gatherings and marches etc.

5 Interview with Sean Dinat, Executive Officer of Security: SMLC

6 See Baseline Report

7 Estimated at 80%

8 The GJMC's website – http://www.gjmc.co.za

9 See Baseline Report

10 The Gauteng Provincial Government City Improvement District Act no. 12 of 1997

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