Col Tjikamba Mbangu, new Station Commander at Athlone Police Station, took over the reigns on Thursday 1 December.
His dream is for the police to work closely with the CPF, neighbourhood watches and the community to make Athlone safer.
Originally from Rustenburg, in the North West, Mbangu plans to spend his retirement years in his hometown when he retires in nine years.
However, he is on a mission to build a strong police station for now.
In an interview with People’s Post, Mbangu said he completed his police training in Hammanskraal in 1991 and was first stationed in Rustenburg before he was deployed to Gordon’s Bay and Macassar and now Athlone.
“My brother Joseph was in the SA National Defence Force, and because he was wearing a uniform, I wanted to join the army. But as life goes, I ended up in the police force and have no regrets,” he says.
The biggest challenges for the police in Athlone are gangsterism and drugs.
“Hijacking, especially with Ubers, is coming and going in terms of crime. But in all honesty, I would say gangsterism is our biggest challenge. Coming from Macassar there are a lot of similarities pertaining to crime in Athlone, so this is not new territory for me,” he says.
His staff and colleagues at Athlone Police Station did not know that he could speak Afrikaans.
“My mother tongue is Sotho and Afrikaans was my second language at school and growing up in the North West province. I am slowly but surely familiarising myself with the Athlone lingo and hope to be fluent in that as well,” he chuckles.
He says it is important for him to work closely with his staff as they are the foot soldiers on whom he depends.
“It is my job to guide them in an organisational way as the staff comes from different cultural backgrounds. Through my 32 years as a police officer, I’ve lost my hot-headedness and am now calm. When you are young you are eager to learn and do things immediately. At 51 years, I have settled and mellowed as it is not about me any longer, but about us, me and my staff,” he says.
On a question about some police officers giving the police force a bad name by involving themselves in criminal activities, he says it is all about money.
“Money does not solve any problems although you need it in your daily life. I would think your integrity as a policeman should count more. It is important to respect yourself and other people. My opinion on the bad cops is that you can do much with wisdom rather than using money as a kickback. If your integrity is on the line, then money is nothing,” he says.
The only thing he would change in the police if he had a choice was the improvement in discipline of officers.
“Officers must go back to basics and do the right thing that they were taught when they started their career as a police officer,” he says.
