Forum launches petition after members excluded from appointment of community patrollers

A community crime-fighting forum has launched a petition claiming its members were excluded from the recent appointment of community patrollers in Buffalo City.

Buffalo City Special Team Task Force organiser Siyabulela Naka said the crime forum had been established in Mdantsane in 2017 to try to help combat the high crime in the area, especially at the notorious Qumza Highway taxi rank.

Naka said: “Since the inception, we have 14 branches across Buffalo City Municipality, which clearly shows the communities are in need of help when it comes to fighting crime.

“We are in need of assistance regarding resources, as we use our personal finances to purchase resources such as walkietalkie radios, reflectors, batons, handcuffs or cable ties, and CCTV cameras to be installed at the taxi rank.”

He said the forum had started off small, after its members were hired by business owners at the Qumza Highway taxi rank to safeguard their properties.

Taxi drivers also showed interest in hiring the forum’s members to protect commuters from robbers.

“As a community forum, we work well with community members as they report to us and we are quick to respond,” he said.

“We were once promised to get training, but we are still waiting for that training, as we still need it.”

Naka said the forum worked with community structures.

If someone reported a crime to them, they requested a police case number showing the victim had reported the matter to the authorities.

“We are willing to work with the police as we know the places across the metro that are rife with criminal activities.

“We are risking our lives as we deal with people who have firearms and we do not have any.”

Community forums have become well-known in Mdantsane, with many people crediting them with drastically reducing crime, especially in the Mdantsane highway trading and business area, which has been plagued by criminal elements, many of them young men known as “amaphara”.

The Dispatch reported in June 2023 that mayor Princess Faku announced that BCM would recruit 100 young ex-convicts and recovering addicts to safeguard municipal property and infrastructure.

Faku’s spokesperson, Bongani Fuzile, said the process of assigning community patrollers in BCM wards had been finalised with 100 people having been recruited.

“On May 22, the chosen individuals will be receiving their certificates from the service provider that was tasked to train them,” Fuzile said.

“We are hoping that soon after that they will be getting into work. We have identified two individuals per ward.”

Their job would be to safeguard municipal property and infrastructure in their wards.

He said young ex-convicts were being given an opportunity.

“We need to not forget that they are human beings despite the challenges they found themselves in. They need a second chance.”

Fuzile said the community police forum in the district had hired 100 people that ward councillors, BCM and MMC for community safety, Helen Neale-may, had no knowledge about.

Fuzile said: “BCMM was not consulted and allegations are that some of the CPFS in other areas hired themselves. When the [BCM] programme was launched, there was a promise that 600 more people would be recruited and that the forums must be part of that.”

Naka said regardless of the 100 community patrollers that were unveiled by community safety MEC Xolile Nqatha in April, the forum’s members would continue serving the community of Mdantsane in the hope that they would get the help they needed.

Naka said: “The government hired their own community patrollers, but that does not dim our enthusiasm in combating crime in our metro.

“We will continue helping those who are in need as we have built trust with community members throughout the years.”

The Dispatch reported in April that Nqatha had announced that the government intended to hire 600 community patrollers by integrating members of the community policing forums.

He said this when announcing that the 100 community patrollers who had aready gone through screening would be employed across the metro.

The patrollers will receive a monthly stipend of R2,660 from May.