The newly elected community policing board at Thohoyandou has promised to work tirelessly in conjunction with the police in making communities safer areas to live in.

The new committee was elected on Saturday at the Thohoyandou police station after its predecessor had completed its three-year term in terms of the constitution.

Mr David Mudau, the Limpopo Provincial Community Policing Board deputy chairperson, said the new dispensation had realigned things and that the new committee would henceforth serve a term of five years and not three, which was the case previously. He said the board had a mammoth task of uniting the community and the police.

He added that there had been no openness on the part of police in the past, which led communities to regard the police as enemies rather than partners in fighting crime. “The time has now come that we should bridge the gap that existed between police and community and fight together as one a common enemy, which is crime. This cannot be fulfilled if our communities still have that negative attitude towards the police,” he said.

Mudau said in order to be able to handle crime, the process should start from the villages where the people lived. He said he was happy because all the sectors in Thohoyandou were represented as they had two members each who would disseminate and make the flow of information easier.

“Through you, we would like to see crime in Thohoyandou going down and a healthy working relationship between the community and police developing, so that we achieve our objective of making our areas a crime-free place where all live in peace without fear of attacks,” he said.

The newly elected chairperson, Mr Ntshengedzeni, said his re-election as chairperson posed a very big challenge to him as he had to work very hard in order to better their past achievements during this term. “The new committee will work with community structures to see to it that there is peace in our areas. I also urge you fellow members to up our work rate as the mandate we are carrying goes with responsibility,”he said.