Cape Town - The City’s Safety and Security Directorate has been allocated a whopping R700 million, allowing it to splash out on new vehicles, equipment and other interventions across its seven departments.
This has raised the ire of opposition parties, who raised concerns over the allocations for human settlements, water and sewerage and other services, the root causes of protests across the city.
The City announced on Tuesday that it would be allocating R535million for the acquisition of vehicles and equipment, as well as improvements to facilities across the seven departments within the directorate.
These departments include the Metro police, Law Enforcement, Cape Town Traffic Service and Fire and Rescue Service. There will also be an additional operating budget totalling R112million which is split between R70million for staff and R42million for general expenses.
Mayco member for Safety and Security JP Smith said: “There are some important deliverables out of this budget. In every community we are feeling the pinch of the public asking us for help in community meeting after community meeting, night after night - and they are all saying the same thing, that they are drowning in crime. And for the same reason the portfolio committee gave a very robust input.” He added that many comments were made about the budget and its priorities.
The budget is expected to be tabled in front of a special full council meeting today. Once adopted, it’s expected to pave the way for plans to deploy one dedicated law enforcement officer to each of the 116 wards in the metro.
This deployment will be in addition to the existing 100 extra officers they are deploying in the Neighbourhood Safety Team. The ward-based law enforcement officers will serve their communities by co-ordinating safety operations, working with the local communities, councillors, neighbourhood watches and community policing forums to ensure that areas in need of attention are addressed.
“It’s enormously valuable, this budget, in terms of helping communities. One of those ways is the ward-based law enforcement officers - an investment we hope to make a success.”
Opposition parties have slammed the City for not prioritising other departments to improve the social well-being of residents.
EFF provincial chairperson Melikhaya Xego said the party would be objecting to the budget today.
“We all know that the City is crippled by crime but there needs to be some sort of accountability because why are we seeing JP Smith’s department getting more than other departments. We have not seen any other departments like human settlements or water and waste services get more money,” Xego said.
The ANC’s Khaya Yozi, a member of the Safety and Security portfolio committee, said: “They have not diverted any money to any social projects for our City. This money should have been allocated to other departments like human settlements. We will not support the budget because its not pro-poor at all.”
ACDP councillor Grant Haskin said: “We welcome this budget for safety and security, however our only concern is that it will take some time for communities to see a tangible and visible change because the City will only be able to spend that money within 11 months and communities are expecting dramatic improvement.”
Earlier this month The Cape Argus reported that in excess of 4 000 comments were received from the public. Of that number, human settlements received 85 comments, water and sanitation received 1 982, and energy and climate change received 2 615.
Sandra Dickson from the lobby group StopCoct said that the City did not take the bulk of the public comments into account.
“No attention is given to the pleas of rate payers regarding the way above inflation tariff increases,” Dickson said.
#CityBudget We are at a special council meeting where the 2019/20 budget is being discussed. @TheCapeArgus @IOL pic.twitter.com/usP4xl7XiH