Question NW2642 to the Minister of Police

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24 August 2015 - NW2642

Profile picture: Ramatlakane, Mr L

Ramatlakane, Mr L to ask the Minister of Police

With reference to his reply to oral question 18 on 5 March 2015, will the specified police co-operation agreement lead to a multilateral agreement between the specified countries; if not, (a) how will the police co-operation agreement receive sufficient resources to neutralise the rhino poaching threat, (b) will the governments of the specified countries sign a supporting Memorandum of Understanding for effective policing in the interim and (c) what will be done to facilitate the deployment of more resources; if so, (i) how long will it take to finalise the specified agreement and (ii) will the finalisation of the specified agreement enable the specified countries to deploy resources in the prevention and integrated strategy?

Reply:

(a)  As mentioned in my previous reply, there is already a multi-lateral police cooperation agreement in place which has been in existence for a number of years. Both Mozambique and Zimbabwe are, as pointed out previously, party to this agreement. Under the auspices of this agreement, the South African Police Service, the Mozambican Police and the South African National Parks meet frequently to discuss operational issues and to put in place operational plans in order to jointly combat rhino poaching. This type of cooperation and interaction is also possible, under the auspices of the multi-lateral agreement, with the relevant authorities in any of the countries in the region which are party to the agreement.

(b)  An interim Memorandum of Understanding is therefore not required, as cooperation is already taking place on the basis of the existing multi-lateral agreement and the frequent operational interaction referred to above.

(c)  Through the frequent interaction and consequential operational plans which arise therefrom, the resources required to address the scourge of rhino poaching are determined and sourced from the relevant entities mentioned in paragraph (a) above.

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