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Liquor outlets and hijacked buildings will be part of the focus of crime busting initiatives in Gauteng, community safety MEC Faith Mazibuko said on Tuesday.

“Our province's law enforcement agencies will continue their focus on liquor outlets that are both illegal and known to contribute substantially to local crimes in communities,” said Mazibuko according to her budget speech, delivered at the Gauteng legislature.

“We are now convinced that the damage caused by these to our social fabric outweighs any economic arguments about alcohol retail as an economic activity.”

Mazibuko acknowledged that there were “law abiding, decent and professionally run outlets”.

However, she added that “the vast majority of outlets do not comply with licence conditions which include trading hours, selling of alcohol to minors and school kids in certain instances and disturbing the peace by playing loud music at night.”

The department was allocated a budget of R423 million.

Mazibuko said the safety of people in their homes, business and in public was the “best indicator of feelings of safety”.

The violent nature of crimes in these spaces was a cause for concern, she said.

The department would focus on violent trio crimes and has identified “specific crime generators” which would also receive attention.

These included liquor outlets, particularly the illegal ones, drug outlets, firearms, banks, spaza shops, illegal mines, hijacked buildings and hostels and shopping malls.

“Spaza shops and shopping malls have in recent years also been targeted to some extent by violent gangs.

“Although shopping mall robberies have been largely contained, we need to retain our vigilance to ensure that criminals do not develop other tactics to avoid detection and arrest. Spaza shops need to professionalise their operations through amongst others, depositing cash with financial institutions to discourage robberies,” Mazibuko said.

The police needed to strengthen its intelligence capacity to deal with the drug trade. The department was working in communities to foster closer relations with law enforcement agencies.

“Strengthening informer networks will go a long way to exposing the trade in drugs as well as easy access to firearms by criminals.”

Mazibuko's budget address included plans to tackle crimes against women and children and to address corruption. -

Sapa