Traders tell of Pretoria crime of grime

BUSINESSES around the Bosman Street area in the CBD are affected by dirt in the street. Oupa Mokoena/ African News Agency (ANA)

BUSINESSES around the Bosman Street area in the CBD are affected by dirt in the street. Oupa Mokoena/ African News Agency (ANA)

Published Feb 18, 2019

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Pretoria - Incidents of crime experienced by many business owners and shoppers in the Pretoria CBD still haunt them whenever they are asked to recount their ordeal.

Shopowner Rana Amin, 28, pointed to nyaope-smoking boys as the main perpetrators of cellphone thefts and business burglaries.

“Their targets are usually white people. Whenever they see white people passing by they will try to rob them,” he said.

Many retailers attributed a lack of metro police visibility to the increasing crime levels in the city.

Amin expressed his frustration over the slow response time by law-enforcement officers to complaints of crime.

“The metro police always have their hands full and they find it difficult to attend to anything we report to them,” he lamented.

A shopkeeper, who only identified himself as Nazim from Bangladesh, said in December he fell prey to a group of seven, who stormed into his shop.

“The next thing we knew one went behind the counter and snatched cellphones. They then ran away.”

Another retailer, Nasir, said: “People do snatch cellphones from others in the CBD and it is because they are not afraid of the law. When the law is very tough people will be scared to commit crime.”

Most of the store owners also complained about poor maintenance of infrastructure, saying it negatively affected their businesses.

Advocate Chambers manager on Madiba Street, Deon Gericke, said some advocates had relocated from the CBD to the suburbs because of the crumbling infrastructure.

They also left because their clients had raised their concerns over crime in the CBD.

“First, they left because of all the deterioration in the city centre. Second, they were not prepared to come to the inner city any more because of crime,” he said.

Other business owners complained about blocked drains, blaming the City for neglecting them.

City spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said: “The City’s regional maintenance team regularly attends to blocked catch pits. However, we have a challenge of littering in the CBD.

"Objects such as rotten vegetables, fruit and cooking oil end up blocking the catch pits with the main culprits being informal traders or hawkers.”

Metro Police senior superintendent Isaac Mahamba said it was malicious and inaccurate to claim that they were doing nothing to combat crime.

“We have a part to play in combating crime, but also urge those people to partner with us to combat crime.”

He said the Metro Police engaged other law-enforcement agencies such as the SAPS and Home Affairs Department to deal with crime on daily basis. He added that CCTV cameras assisted metro police to identify criminal activities.

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