Safety for all high on the Sopa agenda

COMMUNITY safety is expected to be among the main topics at the State of the Province address (Sopa) today.

As crime has reached unprecedented levels in the province, Premier Alan Winde yesterday chaired the first cabinet meeting on safety, which was attended by representatives from across the criminal justice system, including provincial police commissioner Yolisa Matakata, and the departments of Justice and Constitutional Development.

ANC community safety committee member Mesuli Kama said the party expected to be presented a detailed plan on how the deployment of additional police to areas would reduce crime.

“His (Winde’s) safety plan is silent on how spatial planning will be addressed. There is a need for additional CCTV cameras, and other safety infrastructure, in crime hot spots, especially the top-10 murder precincts. We want to hear how the premier plans to address such challenges,” Kama said.

“Crime was at its lowest in the province under the ANC government. The ANC made it a point that community involvement was a key pillar of its safety strategy. When the DA took over in 2009 it dismantled all the strategies that were implemented by the ANC.

“It stopped funding programmes aimed at prevention of crime and violence. The focus shifted away from violence-prevention to an oversight role, which is merely criticising the national government.”

The Sopa is at 11am at the Rocklands Civic Centre in Mitchells Plain today. Speaker Masizole Mnqasela said by hosting the event there “we are realising our desire and commitment to connect with the citizens of the province”.

Winde said yesterday that the cabinet meeting on safety was an opportunity to present and confirm the metrics that would be used for the safety dashboard, which would be the mechanism used to both track the progress towards the goals set out in the Western Cape Safety Plan and the undertakings of the executive.

“We will take the feedback we received today (yesterday), consider and implement it over the next six weeks before we meet again.”