Following a spate of cash-in-transit robberies over the past few days‚ the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) has called on the new minister of police Fikile Mbalula to deal swiftly with these crimes.

“These aggressive acts of violence are becoming a worrying concern as they have not only endangered the lives of our people‚ but are increasingly generating a mood of fear and panic among the populace‚” Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said in a statement.

This comes after a G4S cash-in-transit van was robbed outside the Carlton Centre in downtown Johannesburg on Monday. On Saturday‚ a gang of armed robbers targeted a cash-in-transit van on the R24 near OR Tambo international airport‚ using explosives to blow it open. On the same day‚ Limpopo police foiled a cash-in-transit robbery‚ killing two suspects in the process.

“At the hands of these reprobate elements‚ our country has suffered over five cash in transit heists [in the last] week‚ and these aggressive eventualities point to the fact that we still have an enormous challenge with the eradication of the many illegal firearms that are in the hands of criminal elements‚ regularly utilised to rob people of their lives and property‚” Mamabolo said.

“This is an issue in need of speedy‚ special attention‚” he said.

Mamabolo said criminals were “clearly growing in confidence“.

“While continued instability within the intentionally bloated top management structures of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the infighting within the criminal justice sector continues‚ attention is unnecessarily consumed at the expense of confronting and ridding our communities of such unconventional acts demonstrated in pure daylight‚” he said.

Mamabolo said Popcru called on Mbalula to bring about the long-awaited stability within the SAPS through‚ among other things‚ “bringing an end to these internal battles that have diverted the actual work of combating crime“.