by Dan Plato
I commend Rozario Brown for speaking out against the scourge of gangsterism that continues to plague our communities and which should have been declared a pandemic long before covid-19 landed on our shores.
It was published on IOL, headed, “Blood of Cape Flats people is on politicians’ hands”.
There are, however, some critical points that Brown failed to mention.
First, for any functional law enforcement environment to be effective, one needs a functional criminal justice system. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system in South Africa has serious shortcomings that remain unaddressed.
We have repeatedly called on our residents to speak out against the gangsters and to name them so that they can be arrested, prosecuted and put behind bars.
But when you realise that gang-related crimes have a conviction rate of as low as 3%, then you can understand the reluctance of honest residents to come forward. One just needs to look at the George “Geweld” Thomas case as an example – over a dozen witnesses who came forward to testify in court were killed.
When I spoke out at the time about the shortcomings of the Witness Protection Programme – a national government-run service – an ANC deputy minister at the time defended the system instead of acknowledging they should be doing more to educate residents on how to apply for protection.
While the DA has no authority to fix the criminal justice system unless the party is voted into national office, we will never stop our advocacy in calling for issues to be addressed.
As a City, we have already channelled millions of rand in our budget towards safety and security.
We have had to do this due to years of critical under-resourcing by the SAPS, which has resulted in woefully inadequate police to population ratio in Cape Town.
Just last year, together with the Western Cape Government, the City of Cape Town launched the biggest ever drive to recruit, train and deploy 1 000 additional law enforcement officers in the most crime affected areas on the Cape Flats.
This is money that could have been spent on other service delivery for our residents, but with the failure of the national government to address the rampant and year-on-year increases in serious crime, we have no choice but to divert these funds.
We have already recruited, trained, and deployed 500 out of 1 000 additional law enforcement officers and we are seeing the results.
They regularly confiscate illegal firearms – many of which were put in the gangsters’ hands by corrupt police officers.
Some of the national police officers selling guns to gangsters, such as Colonel Chris Prinsloo and others, were caught and put behind bars, but Prinsloo only served four years of his 18-year term and was then released.
The guns that the corrupt police officers sold to gangsters have been the cause of countless deaths, but our criminal justice system thought it was appropriate to allow such a villain to walk free.
It is reported that there are still more than 1 000 illegal firearms changing hands between gangsters on the Cape Flats.
These same guns were most likely also used by gangsters in the murder of the honest and hard working police officers who try their best under difficult circumstances to make our communities safer.
We have the most extensive CCTV network in Africa; we procured the most innovative gunshot detection system in the world and deployed it to the areas with the highest gang-related crime.
We have put out a tender to expand gunshot detection to more of the most crime affected areas in Cape Town.
The Shotspotter system resulted in law enforcement officers being able to rapidly respond to gunshots, pinpoint the location, and often, confiscate the firearms involved.
We have bought more patrol vehicles for our staff and before Covid-19, re-allocated the bulk of our adjustment budget towards our Safety directorate.
But for this to be fully effective, we need the SAPs who have 10 times more resources than the City of Cape Town to stop playing politics and focus on crime prevention.
I currently patrol with local neighbourhood watches across the City every week and am proud of this active citizenry so I go and show my support wherever I can.
Brown is right that we need a sensible and caring government, and here in Cape Town, we try our best with the limited means at our disposal to do whatever we can do reduce crime and increase safety.
We continue to call on the National Police Management to stop the internal politics, which continues to distract from the pressing needs of communities and to implement strategies in which we can all work together and play our part to make our communities safer.
* Dan Plato is Executive Mayor of Cape Town.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Cape Argus
Do you have something on your mind; or want to comment on the big stories of the day? We would love to hear from you. Please send your letters to [email protected].
All letters to be considered for publication, must contain full names, addresses and contact details (not for publication).