City ‘losing battle against gangs’
THE City has come under fire for spending over R60 million on gang hotspots in the city without an end to the seeming ongoing gang shootings and killings.
“What is the score on this amount of resources deployed into solving the problems of gangs, drugs and crime by the City,” ANC Provincial Secretary Faiez Jacobs asked.
The ANC said that mayoral committee (mayco) member for Safety and Security, JP Smith claims the city metro police have a drug task team, a K9 unit, equestrian units, tactical response units and stabilisation units all deployed in gang hotspots like Hanover Park, Manenberg and others.
“The list goes on and whatever JP Smith is spending his budget on, his programmes are an epic failure and he has also been an underwhelming mayco member more preoccupied with political mudslinging than his safety and security job,” Jacobs said.
According to Stats SA crime stats which were released in March, the province accounts
for more than 36% of all drug-related crime in the country which at 107 379 counts in 2016/17 reflects a 14.2% increase from the 93 996 counts in 2015/16. Almost a quarter (22.78%) of all crime reported in SA occurred in the Western Cape and predominantly in Cape Town.
According to the findings in last year’s State of Urban Safety Report, released by the South African Cities Network’s Urban Safety Reference Group (USRG), the City has seen a 40% increase in the reported murder rate in the last five years.
Community leader Roegshanda Pasco said: “There’s no difference that has been made. Nothing has changed, our people still live in fear of their lives.”
And with schools opening their doors for the third term today, principals and community activists are on edge following violence in various areas around the Cape Flats.
Earlier this year the City’s Safety and Security department received a massive cash injection of just over R110m of additional budget allocated to it via the approved City Budget for 2018/19. Smith said it intended to spend R45m on the appointment of additional staff within the Metro Police and Traffic Services departments.
Smith said: “The City of Cape Town has invested R60m annually on policing efforts which include: R12m towards Shotspotter, R16m towards CCTV and R45m on the appointment of additional staff for metro police and Traffic.” He said that the City has recorded striking successes with 3 663 arrests made by metro police and 976 arrests made by Law Enforcement between last year and this year alone.
“The City controls far too few of the resources and powers to be able to fix this complicated issue. National government alone controls SAPS and the criminal justice system and the City alone simply cannot fill the huge gap that exists,” Smith said.
THE CITY HAS RECORDED STRIKING SUCCESS WITH 3 663 ARRESTS MADE