SARPA’s new strategy produces excellent results

SARPA has been very active this year with many different and exciting developments on all fronts. The new President Mr. William Olivier has committed the Association to a strategy of enhancing its image locally and abroad, taking a leading role in the country with regard to the combating of “copper theft”, training of Utility and Law enforcement personnel across the spectrum of Revenue Protection and Utility metal thefts as well as assisting ailing municipalities through the SARPA Revenue Recovery Strategy.

The very challenging Revenue Recovery project became an instant winner when the test exercise at Drakenstein Municipality and a pilot exercise at Kouga Municipality both proved to be huge successes. During these projects the development of the SARPA Revenue Recovery Toolkit was completed and the aim is now to find partners to sponsors future projects. Discussions with DBSA have been ongoing in this regard. Another highlight is the fact that the Department of Water Affairs has joined forces with SARPA in this very important exercise.  Several Municipalities have already indicated an interest to have such projects conducted in their areas of responsibility and SARPA is currently in the process of finalising the final roll out of the plan.

Copper theft on the other hand has once again become a huge issue in South Africa and SARPA has been identified as one of the main role players to assist in compiling a National Strategy. SARPA is currently involved in providing guidance and training on provincial and national level and also plays a leading role in initiatives like the Non Ferrous Crime Combating Forum (NFCCC) and the SACCI Copper Theft Forum. SARPA is also leading the drive to reestablish the forums in Limpopo and Freestate provinces, as the old ones have stopped functioning with the transfer of coordination process from the SAPS Organized Crime Division to Visible Policing.

All of the seven SARPA branches in the country are currently functioning very well.  The Mapumulanga branch is once again active and a new branch is also planned in Namibia in March 2012. A big effort is currently underway to ensure that representatives from Municipal Water and Financial Directorates also attend the meetings.  The yearly Convention in Polokwane was a huge success and it was noted that all the speakers presented solutions rather than pointing out problems.

The SARPA / NRS initiative to review several NRS standards and to develop a new guideline for the combating of Utility Metal thefts (NRS 101) has been completed in a very short period. This has resulted in SABS awarding the Technical Advisor Mr. Rens Bindeman with an award as a token of gratitude for the effort that went into achieving this goal.

All these efforts has seen SARPA representatives been invited to present workshops and papers at conferences in Central and Southern America, as well as in several other African countries.

Overall SARPA has experienced a very prosperous 2011 and we look forward to increasing the effort in 2012.

By Rens Bindeman
SARPA Technical Advisor