SAPS Siythemba welcomes new District Commissioner
Brigadier Francis Hender has taken the reigns as the district police commissioner with effect from October 26, 2020. He succeeds General Johan Bean who has since returned to Galeshewe district on a lateral transfer. The new district commissioner is not a new figurehead in the district and is an operational strategist in the field.
He left Kuruman in the year 2009 as a station and cluster commander in charge of nine stations by then and has been a game-changer of different stations in the province. He was the district police commissioner in Namakwa before his latest appointment to the John Taolo Gaetsewe cluster head and former station commander of Daniëlskuil, Deben, Warrenton and Galeshewe.
Between station commander and district commissioner positions he has amassed close to eighteen years in his thirty-four-year service. In a nutshell this explains a lot what he brings along in the district. He is a spider that knows how to weave its web. In an intensive interview with the Kathu Gazette, Brigadier Hender did not mince his words in his desire to transform all stations in the district.
He said that SAPS have sufficient personnel to fight graft, corruption, robbery and muggings provided members can put their minds together and reactivate the clarion call to raise service delivery expectations on a higher notch.
“I want us to improve and enhance our rapport with our fellow stakeholders that include among others, community policing forums, traditional leaders, mining houses, farming community, government departments and non-governmental organisations and, of course, the media.
There is dire need to bring all units in the police force to work as a synchronised component in the fight against crime. We have to improve communications and cooperate between stations and these units so that there are no operational fissures in between policing strategies and the pragmatic objective to reduce crime.
We need to improve police visibility everywhere especially in the central business district where places like Kuruman’s Livingstone Avenue has become muggers’ playground. I want production from officials to members in the field. More systems are in the brewing to ensure the communities in this region are guaranteed of safety and security”.
Without pre-empting his working plans, he said that he wants to restore the lost confidence and trust from the community by restructuring systems that will equally resuscitate the integrity of the police. This means all stations must pull up their socks because the new cluster head has all the high-spirited behaviour that members of police have in the field.
