Cape Town - The Western Cape will receive 180 more police officers to be deployed across 10 police precincts for the next two years and 35 vehicles in efforts to remedy crime hot spot areas.
The recently released crime statistics painted a grim crime picture, with the province recording an increase of 1 015 murders, 1 933 sexual offences and 6 032 of assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm.
Police Minister Bheki Cele, joined by his deputy Cassel Mathale and other top cops, welcomed the personnel including crime scene investigators and VISPOL (Visible Police) on Tuesday in Belhar.
Problematic areas that will benefit from the resources include Kraaifontein, Khayelitsha, Delft, Harare, Gugulethu, Nyanga and the Philippi East.
During a media briefing at the police provincial headquarters in Green Point earlier, Western Cape Police Commissioner Thembisile Patekile said they were addressing skewed resource distribution and will move resources from where there was a less need to where they were mostly required.
“We need to prevent loss of life, for example the areas where there are mass killings. We are grateful that the national minister and the deputies have given us about 180 additional members coming from other provinces. The other teams arrived on Monday. In terms of GBV we have trained many people at station level so that on every shift a person on duty knows how to handle the cases.”
Patekile said Lwandle which was becoming a national problem in terms of murders due to extortion, drugs and taxi violence will also receive resources.
“Lwandle in Strand, which falls under the Khayelitsha cluster has grown in population due to informal settlements that have mushroomed in the area. We will do a study to check if we need to upgrade the police stations and if manpower is still adequate to police the community as that was a small police station with few members.
“An intervention that we will now take at this stage is to deploy the cluster commander, more police officers from other police stations and resources to stabilise the area as a short-term solution,” said Patekile.
Deputy National Commissioner Liziwe Ntshinga said as senior managers they had also been deployed to hot spot stations across the province to look at their functions, engage with detectives and ensure correct deployment of resources.
Cape Times