United effort to curb drug use, crime
Deputy mayor meets with stakeholders during two-day public engagement at Harry Gwala Stadium
The eradication of drug use, crime and vagrancy around Pietermaritzburg requires a concerted effort by all stakeholders, Msunduzi Deputy Mayor Mxolisi Mkhize said yesterday.
Mkhize was speaking at the Harry Gwala Stadium boardroom during a two-day public safety enforcement and disaster management stakeholder engagement on fighting crime in the city, which ended yesterday.
He said the CBD was experiencing urban decay as a result of drug use and vagrancy that continued to drive businesses away.
“Our city is experiencing urban decay. Investors are not feeling safe, hence the exodus of businesses. There’s rampant vandalism of municipal structures from traffic lights to power installations to buildings,” Mkhize said.
He highlighted the state of Freedom Square in the city centre, which despite having money poured into revamping it as a recreational facility, “has been turned into a toilet by vagrants or drug addicts”.
“There’s a private security company contracted to guard the facility, but [the drug addicts] continue [defecating] there and no one has spotted them doing that.
“We only see faeces littering the place the next day. What is this company being paid for?” the deputy mayor asked.
“We have lost 80 industrial brush cutters that were meant to clear vegetation around the city, but no one has been prosecuted or caught, yet we are accepting invoices from a security company that is not doing its job,” he said during the opening of the session on the first day of the gathering.
The engagement focused on combatting crime within the city. Over the two days, representatives from the SAPS and other law enforcement agencies, the Department of Home Affairs, the Pietermaritzburg and Midlands Chamber of Businesses, the South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (Sanca), various tertiary institutions, the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco), the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and eThekwini Metro deliberated on several security issues and the urban decay.
They also touched on the challenges posed by illegal immigration, exploring the link between homelessness and its impact on crime rates, as well as strategies to address the pervasive issue of drug abuse within the city.
Mkhize said it was through a collective effort that the city's fortunes could be turned around.
Santaco uMgungundlovu District chairperson Themba Mweli said the initiative was long overdue.
He said their ranks in Pietermaritzburg have been a cause for concern for some time. “We see an increase in crime, especially in our [taxi] ranks.
“We are happy to have the city’s buy-in in crime fighting, especially since this is their initiative.
“The challenge is that the law threatens us with arrest when we sjambok these drug addicts, removing them from our ranks.
“Another challenge in dealing with drugs is that the security clusters, especially the police, work in silos.
“The positive outcome of this engagement is that a team comprising members from all the security clusters will meet [on a date to be announced] and the city will draft and present a plan of action,” said Mweli.
The senior public prosecutor of the NPA, based in the Plessislaer policing precinct, Zubeida Vahed, said the engagement was relevant to all areas under uMgungundlovu. She said her area is the hotbed of crime in the uMgungundlovu District.
She said drugs and alcohol were the driving factors behind the increasing crime stats in the district.
“We work with the police in trying to eradicate the illegal alcohol trade.
With drugs, it is different because once a perpetrator is arrested, there are delays in receiving the lab results for whatever substance the dealer was caught with.
“Those delays lead to the dealer being released back to the community to commit the same crime.
“Community members are not happy with the proliferation of drugs in their areas because the lives of their children get messed up. This is a huge problem that needs a concerted effort from all stakeholders to come on board,” said Vahed.