Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa has urged his officers to arrest children and other people who make prank calls to the police's 10111 centres.
Mthethwa was speaking yesterday at the official opening of a 10111 command centre in Bloemfontein, Free State.
"We can't afford to have people blocking our centre with their prank calls," Mthethwa said.
"There are people, including schoolchildren, blocking our system when other people expect help. Some of them hurl insults at our operators and this is intolerable."
He said out of 14,700 calls received by 10111 command centres, only 3,000 were genuine.
Apart from prank calls, Mthethwa said there were people, particularly the elderly, who called the centres on matters not related to police work.
"Disturbing the police in their work is disturbing the fight against crime. We urge operators to delay those prank calls until our members have apprehended the culprits," he said.
Mthethwa said lessons drawn from the Gauteng pilot project was that a significantly high percentage of calls received were typically abandoned by operators for a variety of reasons.
"The reasons include negligence and call takers' lack of responsibility and commitment. We can't tolerate such negligence and that is why monitoring systems must be implemented by the provincial management.
"If we abandon calls, we are killing the nation. Once we leave here, we don't want to hear reports about the high volume of abandoned calls."
Mthethwa urged people to utilise the centre and report any criminal activity in their communities.
"The police must ensure that once they arrest criminals they communicate to society that such scoundrels are behind bars. Failure to do so leads to anxiety, strained relations and perceptions that the police are ineffective, when in fact they are effective," Mthethwa said.
- ntwagaes@sowetan.co.za
Prank call culprits to face arrest
Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa has urged his officers to arrest children and other people who make prank calls to the police's 10111 centres.
Mthethwa was speaking yesterday at the official opening of a 10111 command centre in Bloemfontein, Free State.
"We can't afford to have people blocking our centre with their prank calls," Mthethwa said.
"There are people, including schoolchildren, blocking our system when other people expect help. Some of them hurl insults at our operators and this is intolerable."
He said out of 14,700 calls received by 10111 command centres, only 3,000 were genuine.
Apart from prank calls, Mthethwa said there were people, particularly the elderly, who called the centres on matters not related to police work.
"Disturbing the police in their work is disturbing the fight against crime. We urge operators to delay those prank calls until our members have apprehended the culprits," he said.
Mthethwa said lessons drawn from the Gauteng pilot project was that a significantly high percentage of calls received were typically abandoned by operators for a variety of reasons.
"The reasons include negligence and call takers' lack of responsibility and commitment. We can't tolerate such negligence and that is why monitoring systems must be implemented by the provincial management.
"If we abandon calls, we are killing the nation. Once we leave here, we don't want to hear reports about the high volume of abandoned calls."
Mthethwa urged people to utilise the centre and report any criminal activity in their communities.
"The police must ensure that once they arrest criminals they communicate to society that such scoundrels are behind bars. Failure to do so leads to anxiety, strained relations and perceptions that the police are ineffective, when in fact they are effective," Mthethwa said.
- ntwagaes@sowetan.co.za
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