Residents plead for better policing in Centane area
Concerns raised as provincial commissioner attends launch of 16 Days of Activism campaign
Centane is a tiny rural town reached by rough roads which make travel between local villages difficult.
This makes life tough for the men and women of the single under-resourced police station who have the responsibility of protecting the population of 47 administrative areas with 300 villages.
Some people don’t bother to report crime because the only police station is in town far from their homes in an area that stretches from near Butterworth down to the coast at Qolora-by-the-sea and Mazeppa Bay.
Residents found a perfect platform during the launch of the 16 Days of Activism on crimes against women and children at Centane on Saturday to raise their frustrations with police provincial commissioner Ltgen Nomthetheleli Mene.
They said it was difficult to police areas like Cebe, places around Trennery’s Hotel, Wavecrest, Mazeppa Bay, Seagulls, Qolorha Mouth and many other tourist destination areas and Wild Coast beaches and villages.
Residents applauded the work done by local police despite their being overstretched and working with limited resources.
Speakers highlighted the high rate of murder and rape of children in the Centane area, and said it would help if Mene introduced three satellite police stations, as there had been before.
Sanco leader Mpumelelo Sweli said: “Crime is escalating. The only police we have is in town, far from the areas lying along the coast, north and south of Centane.
“Our local police are working very hard with the limited resources they have but they cannot properly police the entire district.
“It’s all just too much for the few police members who have only two vehicles to cover the entire area.”
The residents also complained that the town was in a forest and it was risky to travel there at night to lay a charge at the police station.
Mene sympathised with the residents’ concerns about the vastness of Centane and decayed road infrastructure.
“I have seen it myself and struggled to manoeuvre on these roads.
“This is one of the reasons that some police vehicles are in a poor condition or sit in garages.
“Centane has no roads at all and this makes it difficult for us to police the area.”
The Women’s Network provincial patron Brigadier Lindelwa Vellem said the community should not be silent about violence.
Mene said she was impressed by Centane CPF for supporting the police. People were also respectful of the police.
She further promised the Centane community that they would get a mobile community service centre for service delivery and encouraged them to report criminal activities.
Speakers, including community safety district director Noxolo Mnqotho, raised concern about the growing trend of parents killing their own children.
Men For Change national chair Sivuyile Nqaphi pleaded with the community to fight crime with the police and not against them, and to report any crime.
“Men should be used as agents of change in achieving gender transformation in our workplaces and beyond.
“Women have to be part of this process so men can understand that the aim is not to take power away from them, but to highlight the power of our combined capacities.
“GBV can be brought to an immediate end if every man makes a conscious decision never to harm a woman or a child — and lives by that decision.”
Our local police are working very hard with the limited resources they have but they cannot properly police the entire district