LOUISE FLANAGAN

GAUTENG hopes to be the province best at combating crime.

“Watch this space. We still have three months,” provincial police commissioner Mzwandile Petros said yesterday.

The provinces are assessed on their performance over the financial year, so the last quarter is still not over.

Gauteng was routinely the province with the worst crime record in the country. Then, in the 2010/11 financial year, the province jumped to fifth place, and the performance for the first part of this year has been encouraging.

“We are overall number two in the country… If we become number one in the quarter we will become number one in the country,” said Petros.

“A safer Gauteng can go a long way to a safer South Africa.”

Petros was speaking at a provincial government briefing in Pretoria to the diplomatic community about crime perceptions.

He spoke of the difficulty of persuading people that crime was declining in Gauteng, despite the drop in the incidence of key crimes like murder (down 5 percent); attempted murder (down 15 percent); assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm (down 5 percent); armed robbery (down 15 percent); car hijacking (down 20 percent); and truck hijacking (down 30 percent).

“If I say don’t worry, crime is going down in Gauteng, they will tell me to go to hell,” he said.

Premier Nomvula Moko- nyane said there was a “strong perception” internationally that SA and Gauteng in particular were unsafe destinations, and blamed the media for encouraging such perceptions.

She said the reality was that police had dismantled organised-crime networks, and that the government and investors believed that crime was “being nipped in the bud”.

However, Mokonyane acknowledged that crime remained a challenge in the province.

“One murder is one too many, but there are many instances where police have made arrests,” she said.

Diplomats from 15 countries attended the briefing at a Pretoria hotel.

It was scheduled for 7am, but started only at 8.30am because Petros was delayed dealing with a shooting incident in Sunninghill.

Although the premier stayed overnight at the hotel, she did not join the meeting until Petros arrived.

The premier’s official residence is in Bryanston, about 60km away, and she paid her own hotel bill.

“She’s footing the bill,” said her spokesman Xoli Mngambi.