The police boss - looking smart in her new police uniform, with shining brass on her epaulettes - smiled warmly when she was asked about her job.

"But I must say I'm looking forward to the journey," she continued.

Phiyega was part of a high-level police delegation to the opening of a police forensic sciences lab in Cape Town yesterday.

She admitted that her "journey" will not be easy and that the issues she is tackling are difficult. One such issue is gangsterism in Western Cape.

Last week she accompanied Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa and Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer to gang-infested Steenberg, Lavender Hill and Hanover Park.

They also visited the family of eight-year-old Junaid McKenzi, who was killed by a stray bullet in a gang-related shoot-out on June 28.

Gang warfare on the Cape Flats has claimed the lives of more than 20 people since the beginning of the year.

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has appealed to President Jacob Zuma to bring in the army to help contain the situation.

During the visit, Mthethwa said: "If you want to deal with the problems of Western Cape, particularly the gang problem, you have to come up with a multidisciplinary approach. This thing of having soldiers to come and shoot ... what are you going to shoot here?"

Yesterday Phiyega said she has "serious confidence" in Lamoer and his team of officers in the province.

Though she admitted that the police are "stretched to the limit", she said there was a strategy to deal with the problem.

"Nationally we are all putting our heads together to see how we can give support to ensure that this problem in the province can be tackled," Phiyega said.

"The communities must come on board. The families must come on board because these are our children, these are our neighbours, these are our cousins."

Phiyega called on communities, the provincial government and the police to "hold hands" in the fight against crime.

"We . need radical and very serious interventions that can bring in sustainability in [fighting crime]."