This is according to the spokesperson for the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, Qondile Khedama, who says the structure, as is, was presented to the workplace restructuring sub-committee and taken to the local labour forum thereafter.  

Khedama further reveals that the design is yet to be presented to the Mangaung Council for noting.  Whilst a date has not been announced to the media, it is expected the presentation to the council will occur soon. The design – a copy of which has been leaked to the media - categorises the different parts of the Mangaung Metro into three regions, where teams of the metro police will be deployed.

The Bloemfontein and Soutpan areas fall under the central region, which is also where the vast majority of the department will be based and operate from. Thaba’ Nchu and Botshabelo fall under the Eastern region, whereas Dewetsdorp, Wepener and Van Stadensrus fall under the Southern Region. 

Khedama did not respond to specific questions on the design, such as the overall number of vacant positions and the overall number of officials that will belong to the department. No mention was made of the initial concerns surrounding rank structure that were mentioned by Mashinini in July 2020.

In July 2020, Mashinini announced that the national police commissioner, Khehla Sitole, had approved the establishment of the Mangaung Metro Police on 7 January 2020 already. Concerns were also raised around the financial viability of the municipality, to which Mashinini said the Metro will have to do with its current Traffic Officers and ensure that it does not incur extra remuneration costs until the metro police are well established. 

When looking at the Traffic Services Section of the organisational design, focusing just on the Central Region – Bloemfontein and Soutpan – one finds that there isn’t much of a difference in the number of personnel currently employed (93 officials) versus those that will fall under the new department (97 officials). This trend extends to other regions, showing the metro won’t be spending more money on hiring more traffic officials for the department, as Mashinini indicated.

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