28 November 2012
South Africa has put effective plans in place to ensure a safe and secure 2013 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) tournament, Deputy Police Minister Maggie Sotyu told reporters in Pretoria on Tuesday.
“Everything is in place with regards to security; we started planning as early as May this year, [and] both national and international screening with regard to all participating 16 teams has been completed,” Sotyu said.
“Security will be provided to all the participating teams including Bafana Bafana 24/7. We will strengthen security at all ports of our entry during this period, especially our borders, airports, seaports and land ports of entry.
“All the teams will be escorted from the airport to their respective hotels; teams will also be escorted from their hotels to their training venues 24/7 to make sure that they are safe,” she said.
Sotyu also said permanent police officers would be deployed to all the hotels where the national teams will be staying.
She said Home Affairs was ready to handle the movement of both people and goods at the ports of entry.
“We also have our own police officers that we’ve trained with regard to assistance at the ports of entry in case we need more man power,” she said.
“Buses carrying players will be escorted by the police all the times; each and every movement of the buses carrying the teams will be provided with security by the police.”
Dedicated investigators for criminal cases
With regard to criminal cases during the tournament, Sotyu said that unlike the 2010 Fifa World Cup there wouldn’t be special courts for criminal activities, but there would be dedicated investigators who will focus on the cases that happen during the tournament.
While there would be the normal procedure of handling the cases, she said criminal cases committed during the tournament will always be prioritised in the courts of law.
Police were going to make sure that they control the crowd in and outside the stadiums.
Chairperson of the National Joint Intelligence Structure, Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela, said part of their security concept to effectively deal with any form of hooliganism in the stadiums was also in place.
“Part of our security concept to deal with hooliganism in and around the stadiums includes ensuring that we put ‘spotters’ among the spectators to identity the so- called hooligans, remove them from the stadium and take them into police custody.
“We will ensure that the intelligence community that we are working with in the region, through the Southern African Regional Police Chief Council Organisation (Sarpcco) and Interpol, will also assist us with the movement of the people who will be coming to our country for the tournament,” he said.
Sarpcco is an official forum comprising all the police chiefs from southern Africa.
“We are not going to drop the standards which we’ve created in dealing with all the major events that we host in our country,” he said.
Should the security guards, who will be working at the stadiums, decide to embark on an illegal strike like they did during the 2010 Fifa World Cup, General Mawela said: “We have plan D and even plan E.”
“We have a reserve group at a national level who can be moved around the country at any given time and we also have the contingency funds whereby we will ensure that people will be moved around head office to whatever affected stadium. We will never have any problem with regards to this issue.”
South Africa will host the tournament from 19 January to 10 February 2013.
Source: SANews.gov.za
