WESTERN CAPE NEWS - The civil rights organisation AfriForum and the Western Cape Department of Community Safety launched a collective plan for the safeguarding of farms on 29 October during a media conference in Cape Town.
This follows the recent announcement of the 2016/2017 crime statistics by Fikile Mbalula, Minister of Police and the latest statistics by AfriForum regarding farm attacks and murders that were committed this past year.
Lieutenant General Khombinkosi Jula, Provincial Police Commissioner in the Western Cape, Dr Ivan Meyer, Provincial Minister of Finance as well as Dan Plato, Provincial Minister of Community Safety attended the conference.
"The purpose of the 10-point plan is to nurture awareness among the rural community and to help them establish safety structures within the community," says Johandré van Zyl, AfriForum's Regional Safety Coordinator for the Western Cape.
The 10-point-plan to protect farms in the Western Cape
- Intensive awareness to safeguard: a. Families; b. Personnel/employees; and c. Property and equipment.
- Emphasising good labour relations between employers and employees.
- Disseminating safety hints to the farming community.
- Disseminating evaluation statements against which farmers can evaluate their farm security.
- Help with the establishing of safety structures (farm watches).
- Help to obtain equipment to enable safety structures to function effectively (communication, lighting, night vision, etc).
- Training of safety structures.
- Help with the development and practicing contingency plans.
- Establishing partnerships and developing formal agreements with role-players in the safety environment.
- Developing and implementation of an information network.
All the above-mentioned actions will be implemented in the last months of 2017.
The official launch will be presented jointly by AfriForum and the Western Cape Department of Community Safety in March 2018.
Thereafter it will be launched countrywide.
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