UDM calls for deployment of SANDF in metro

The UDM wants the SA National Defence Force to be deployed in Nelson Mandela Bay and a state of disaster declared after a flurry of killings, including mass shootings, in the city.

The party urged mayor Retief Odendaal to ask President Cyril Ramaphosa to send troops to the streets of the metro to help curb violent crime.

UDM provincial spokesperson Yongama Zigebe said in a statement on Tuesday that Bay residents were at the mercy of trigger-happy criminals while the police were failing to bring an end to the violence.

“In recent months, multiple murders and massacres have occurred in different parts of the metro,” Zigebe said.

“In the northern areas, drug lords run the streets and mass murders have been the order of the day.

“[In] New Brighton, Kariega, Motherwell and other areas in the metro, people’s lives are been taken like flies and little to nothing has been done to apprehend, prosecute and sentence criminals.

“Recently, police have been attacked and murdered in courtrooms and police stations, doctors in their surgeries and businessmen and women [at] their [businesses].”

He said there were precedents for the deployment of troops to fight crime, pointing out that Ramaphosa had ordered the SANDF to help guard Eskom power stations, and soldiers were recently deployed during the EFF’s planned national shutdown.

“The UDM believes that it’s time the president seriously leads and shows the people of Nelson Mandela Bay ... that he has their best interest at heart by keeping them safe and uprooting the scourge of crime.”

Zigebe also blasted Bheki Cele’s efforts to curb violence in the metro, saying all the police minister did was pass messages of condolences to grieving families.

“SAPS are not winning this war as it escalates each passing day,” he said.

Cele’s spokesperson, Lirandzu Themba, said the minister had in recent months led ministerial interventions with the national police commissioner to the Bay and other areas of concern in the Eastern Cape.

“These interventions have yielded positive results, with multiple arrests being made in several mass shootings and other crime incidents.

“The province has also been empowered to upscale [preventive] measures.

“To the people of the Eastern Cape, these interventions are making a difference,” Themba said.