Under His Excellency, our President’s leadership, we now have a blue print, in the form of the National Development Plan Vision 2030, that will both innovate and re-invigorate our mission as the nation to live side by side in our communities with tolerance, ubuntu, peace and stability.

This Vision obligates the South African Police Service to be transformed into a professional, competent, cohesive, and integrated front-line Department.

And, I can assure you, Ladies and Gentlemen, we the Executive of the Department of Police, the Minister of Police and myself, with our National Commissioner of Police and her management team, have been hard at work these past 100 days since the new administration was sworn in earlier this year.

We have been visiting our SAPS Provincial Management for monitoring and evaluating; appearing in-front of Parliament to account and attest on our police operations.

Yes, we have been holding public engagements to assure and affirm with our people that we are changing for the better; and, indeed continuing to introspect ourselves as the SAPS to do better in our mandate to secure our nation.

In this instance, 2014/2015 has been declared as an extension of the Year of Frontline Service Delivery at Police Station Level.

Notwithstanding, as Police Leadership, we are cognizant that, this mission will never come to fruition if our human resource is not in a state of readiness to deliver this required service.

It is with this reason that we decided to prioritize the SAPS Employee Health and Wellness Programme for this Financial Year 2014/2015.

The employee health and wellness of the entire career of an active police officer, from recruitment, retention and retirement, is of utmost importance for the survival of this organization, the SAPS.

The survival and efficiency of the SAPS solely depends on those foot police officers operating from the police stations; and these are the police officers we need to pay attention to.

We thus need to take into account all facets of police safety needs, including taking into account the daily stresses this profession has on those men and women in blue who continue to serve and protect our communities.

With these words, Programme Director, and all distinguished guests, as Police Leadership, we wish to convey our heartfelt condolences to all those families who lost their loved ones; and we seek to improve the SAPS to honour those fallen heroes and heroines.

Thank you to each and every police member who is upright, upholding the principles of the law and dedicated to the safety of our citizens: you are our pride.

You are the shield of the nation and you carry with you immense responsibilities on your shoulder. Protect, serve, empower and excel with excellence.

In conclusion, as the Police Leadership, we wish to acknowledge the following people/organizations, for their continuing support to the South African Police Service and its members:

(ATTACHED LIST BELOW)

• MINISTERS

Ms. Nomsa Hani
Head of Office & Spokesperson
Office of the Deputy Minister of Police

Tel: +27 12 3934469 / 21 4677023
Fax: +27 12 3934614 / 21 4614174
E-mail: HaniNomsa@saps.org.za
www.saps.gov.za