Western Cape premier Alan Winde and community safety MEC Albert Fritz have both blamed poor policing for the high crime and murder rate in the Western Cape.
In a statement on Thursday after the release of crime statistics for 2018/19, Alan Winde and Albert Fritz said, “Despite last year’s promises from police minister Bheki Cele and the service he leads, violent crime in the Western Cape remains effectively unchanged”.
Winde said: “I’m deeply concerned that murder increased by 6.6% in the Western Cape. Of these, 47% of incidents occurred in just 10 police stations. The murder-to-population ratio in the Western Cape is 60 per 100,000 – almost double the national average.”
Fritz said the Western Cape had 11.6% of SA’s population but 18.9% of its murders. Eleven of its police stations were among the 30 nationwide reporting the most murders.
“This is unacceptable and points to the need for more boots on the ground and more regular statistics,” he said.
“The SA Police Service needs to adopt evidence-based policing, which would lead to deployment at key times in key hotspot locations. We need our police to be in these hotspots before crimes are committed, not after.”
Winde said his government would soon unveil its own safety plan, and he repeated his call for policing to be run provincially.
“These statistics have shown that the nationally managed SAPS have lost the war on crime,” he said.
More: Times Live