Since the announcement that the South African Police Service (SAPS) appointed a new head to the Western Cape Anti-Gang (AGU) Unit, it is still unclear who the person is.
Also read: Western Cape Anti-Gang Unit gets new leadership, more officers
As reported by News24 on 23 February, Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile, the commissioner of police for the Western Cape, declared that a new brigadier would be appointed alongside 47 new officers.
He announced this during an interview with eNCA. At the time, Western Cape MEC for Police Oversight and Community Safety Reagen Allen welcomed the appointment of a brigadier whose ‘background he was familiar with’.
On 1 March, the Daily Maverick inquired about the identity of the new AGU leader with the Western Cape SAPS.
According to provincial police spokesperson Colonel Andrè Traut, ‘Brigadier Joseph Raboliba is the commander of the Anti-Gang Unit in the Western Cape.’
After contacting Raboliba to request an interview, the Daily Maverick was referred to the Western Cape SAPS media centre.
However, on the same day, Allen confirmed that Raboliba (whom he did not refer to by name) had taken a job with the City of Cape Town (COCT).
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‘SAPS informed me that the brigadier has taken up a position in the city,’ he said. ‘On a personal note, this can only bode well for him. I wish him all the best.’ He also added that SAPS needed to appoint a new brigadier ‘with great urgency’. This implied that the AGU did not have a new boss.
‘The AGU is the leading cog in combating, disrupting and stopping all gang activities. This is a unit that is also severely under-resourced.’
‘This is part of (…) why we continue to call for the devolution of policing powers to a capable provincial government such as ourselves, as we will ensure that this unit is capacitated and resourced as required.’
Furthermore, the Daily Maverick suggests that if Raboliba took a job at CoCT, the City may have poached the new brigadier after he was appointed the new AGU head. It further states that several SAPS officers left to work for the City of Cape Town.
A second inquiry on the new brigadier’s identification on 4 March yielded no results, and Raboliba did not respond to questions regarding his current employment status.
The Daily Maverick repeated its question to the Western Cape SAPS media centre on Tuesday morning, to which an officer replied that the query had been ‘escalated’.
As of this week, some AGU officers are still unsure of who is heading the unit.
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