Metro police force up and running real soon

BUFFALO City Metro police services is expected to hit the streets soon.

This comes as the metro has submitted a plan to safety and liaison MEC Weziwe Tikana, to amalgamate the traffic services and law-enforcement services to create the metro police force.

Council gave the establishment of the metro police a thumbs-up but for it to be realised, Tikana will have to sign it off and publish it in the Eastern Cape Government Gazette.

It is not yet clear how many members the force would have or how having an effective metro police service would cost.

But once it has been established, the force would enforce municipal bylaws and crackdown on lawlessness within the metro.

Pakati said having an operational metro police service would bode well for the city.

“Our path towards having a fully fledged metro police service as a city is on course with the department of safety and liaison having evaluated our application and found that it is compliant with the SA Police Service Act.

“We are now waiting for the MEC of safety and liaison [Tikana] to append her approval signature to our application so that we begin with the process of amalgamating our traffic services with law-enforcement services and create a metro police service.

“We are now waiting for this as we have made a number of strides in the arena of law enforcement and traffic services,” the mayor said while delivering the state of the metro address at the East London ICC last week.

Until Tikana approves the application and publishes it in the Gazette, the metro would continue to ensure traffic and lawenforcement officers fight against crime.

To help the officers in this endeavour, the metro has installed CCTV in Litchis and Fuller’s Bay, King William’s Town CBD, Duncan Village, Mdantsane, Bhisho, the Black Road, Southernwood, Beacon Bay, Gompo, and the East London city centre. “We are currently in the process of installing 80 more cameras in strategic areas across the city and this will lead to our fully fledged CCTV network having 119 live cameras within the next two years.”

Pakati said they had identified the need for more traffic officers’ visibility in rural areas. He said the R21.4-million state-of-the-art traffic centre under construction in King William’s Town was nearing completion.