BRITISH POLICE ARRIVE TO HELP THREE senior British police chiefs have spent the past three weeks in South Africa as consultants to the SA police, and have recommended that the quality of policing is more important than the number of policemen. They have also advised that “getting the public involved” is the vital secret. They say decision making should be devolved down the ranks, closer to the the immediate problem, and that the first priority is to safeguard the streets.
ALL BLACKS ROBBED The newly arrived All Blacks rugby team had an early taste of South Africa when a thief posing as a television repair man stole R6 000 from the Holiday Inn rooms of All Blacks players in Pretoria.
MPUMALANGA BUDGET PASSED THE MPUMALANGA legislure finally passed its R5 billion budget, after four months of dispute over a projected R940m shortfall which the central government refused to fund. Opposition parties have warned that the drastically pruned budget does not provide enough for education or health. Only environmental affairs scored high — apparently to ensure that the province meets its contractual obligations to the Dolphin Group, which has bought rights to the province’s nature reserves.
CONGO RIVALS BURY HATCHET CONGO President Pascal Lissouba and his rival, former dictator Denis Sassou Nguesso on Wednesday signed an accord of recionciliation, prompting their supporters to celebrate with bursts of gunfire. Before the truce was announced, earlier in the day mortar fire was heard in spite of a new ceasefire which came into force on Sunday. Representatives of the two leaders will now meet in the Gabonese capital Libreville formpolitical talks.
CRIMINALS USING POLICE NETWORKS SAFETY and security minister Sydney Mufamadi says that international crime syndicates have penetrated South Africa, relying on the underground contacts built up by former police and intelligence agents. A Bulgarian syndicate that arrived in this country had complete South African papers including vehicle registation documents, which could only have been supplied by insiders. Mufamadi said legislation was being considered to “silence” former agents and prevent them selling off their secrets.