Cape Town - DA Western Cape leader Patricia de Lille has ripped into the national government, saying they were “complicit in the crime crisis” in the province.
De Lille accused the government of purposefully under-resourcing the fight against crime in the Western Cape saying: “The minister of police, Nathi Nhleko, and the police should hang their heads in shame as the crime statistics in the province show increases in serious and violent crimes.”
De Lille added that since April last year to March this year, police in the province had “incomparably high vacancy rates, and 85 percent of police stations had been left understaffed”.
“As a result, murder has increased and we now lose almost nine people every day as policing remains ineffective. Robbery with aggravating circumstances increased by 18.6 percent as posts remained vacant, by as many as 2 390,” she said.
She added that calls by the DA to reinstate specialised gang and drug units in the province “had fallen on deaf ears”.
But the ANC hit back, launching an attack on the provincial government and claiming the recently released crime statistics had exposed the DA’s flagship gang fighting strategy, Operation Ceasefire as a “dismal failure” and nothing but a “money wasting” exercise.
ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs said the DA had been boasting about their policing models in the city when, in fact, the opposite has been proven by the crime statistics.
“We have seen how under the leadership of the DA, the city and the province have claimed to be beating gangs and crime on the Cape Flats. The statistics reveal how spectacularly they have failed,” Jacobs said.
He added that under the DA government gang-related murders “had peaked” – accounting for more than 28 percent of murders in the Western Cape.
“Their policies of killing community participation in the fight against crime have had a devastating effect on the rates of violent crime. So despite claims of success against the gangs, gang murders under the DA have actually increased, as reflected in the communities of Hanover Park and Nyanga,” Jacobs said.
Also reacting to the crime statistics that were released on Tuesday, the EFF said the increase in the three major categories of crime came as no surprise.
“The extent of the increase is no coincidence. The province has no co-ordinated approach to address crime and there are no attempts to ensure that there are alternatives to crime for the youth,” EFF provincial leader Bernard Joseph said.
Cape Argus