Honeydew SAPS scoop awards

The hard work and dedication of the police officers at Honeydew SAPS was rewarded at the Annual Gauteng Prestige Awards held to commend police for their outstanding service. Honeydew SAPS received awards for the best arrest for the year, best operational employee of the year (crime prevention) and best support service of the year (supply chain manager).

Constable Bheki Nkosi walked away with the Best Operational Employee of the Year award and shared the Best Arrest of the Year award with colleagues.

Being a constable at the SAPS is very important to Nkosi, which is why he tries to exceed all of his targets on every shift. He attributes his success to constantly reviewing the latest crime hot spots. “During my shift I make sure I drive through the hot spot areas, for visibility, on my way to complaints,” said Nkosi.

Nkosi is always ready to give backup to his colleagues when needed as he knows that reaction time is very important to execute an arrest.

The Best Arrest of the Year award Nkosi shared with colleagues is attributed to the exceptional response and successful arrest of criminals who robbed a jewellery shop at Randridge Mall. Nkosi and other police officers were involved in a dramatic chase with the alleged robbers. In the process of the chase, Nkosi and his crew member were shot.

“Because I stayed calm I was able to request back up and give details of the suspect’s vehicle. I stayed behind the suspects and continuously updated the back-up vehicles. When they arrived the team managed to arrest the suspects, recover the stolen property, as well as firearms.”

Dedicated to his job, Nkosi resumed his duties immediately after being shot in spite of his seniors advising that he should stay home.

Some of the arrests he was involved in during 2012/2013 are; 14 suspects for possession of drugs, 11 suspects in possession of car breaking implements, two suspects in possession of a stolen motor vehicle, three suspects in possession of unlicensed firearms, seven suspects for house robberies, one hi-jacker, two suspects for business robbery, and five suspects for possession of stolen property.

Honeydew SAPS Captain Richard Mbhalati received the award for Best Support Service-Supply Chain Manager.

Mbhalati has been performing his duties as acting Head of the Supply Chain Management (SCM) Office at the Honeydew SAPS since April 2012. He deals with all fleet management matters for the entire Honeydew Cluster. Mbalathi goes beyond the call of duty, visiting the station over weekends in his private vehicle to conduct vehicle inspections without requesting rest days.

Also handling towing services for the cluster, Mbalathi is on standby 24/7. He even performed this task whilst on vacation leave.

Mbalathi not only rescheduled planned leave to assist the Auditor General’s visit during February, he then shortened his rescheduled leave in order to deal with his duties.

His duties further include the entire cluster SCM matters such as manning the accounting station. This means the officer works over many weekends to ensure all duties, especially the certifying of assets, are up-to-date.

Shortage of personnel means the officer must also deal with facility, inventory, acquisition, loss and procurement management.