Cape Town – At least nine people were murdered every day in the Western Cape in the first three quarters of the 2016/17 financial year. This equates to 2 481 murders between April 1 and December 31, 2016.
The gloomy preliminary figures, which have been released by the SAPS, already indicate an increase of 0.7% in the provincial murder rate compared to the previous year’s statistics.
The national murder rate currently stands at 52 people on average per day.
It’s the first time since the mid-1990s that the police have publicly released quarterly crime reports, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), which had long been advocating for the move, said on Monday.
According to the police document, entitled the "Crime Situation in SA", the Western Cape was the fourth deadliest province after Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
In Gauteng and KZN, 11 people are murdered on average every day, followed by 10 killings in the Eastern Cape. The rates were calculated per 100 000 population.
Acting national commissioner Khomotso Phahlane said the release of quarterly crime statistics was a collaboration between police and Statistics South Africa to ensure stats were in line with international best practice.
According to the police’s figures, Gauteng also recorded the highest number of reported rape and attempted murder incidents in the first three months of the new financial year, which ends at the end of this month. Rape in the Western Cape was down 1.7% so far, with 3 546 cases reported in the first nine months, while just over 2 500 matters relating to attempted murder were lodged in the same period.
Other serious crimes, including theft, commercial crimes and shoplifting, had shown a slight decline.
“We thank all members of the South African Police Service who have worked diligently to bring about a reduction in most crime trends, especially over the festive season, when we notably heightened law enforcement visibility,” Phahlane said.
However, Phahlane said his department was concerned about the continued increase in the so-called trio crimes, namely carjacking, house robbery and business robbery.
ISS senior researcher Johan Burger said while the organisation was “enormously grateful that we’ll have crime stats on a quarterly basis”, it was also concerned at the increase in the trio crimes.
“We are happy with the decreases, but we remain worried about other sub-categories like aggravated robbery, because if you look at the first three quarters, there has been an increase, and that’s concerning.”
Phahlane said police would enhance its efforts to reach out and engage with communities across the country as an additional measure to curb crime.