Geordin Hill-Lewis defends Western Cape government on rising crime levels

07 June 2022 - 14:00
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Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has blamed police minister Bheki Cele for failures in policing. File photo.
Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has blamed police minister Bheki Cele for failures in policing. File photo.
Image: Esa Alexander

Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has hit back at police minister Bheki Cele for his failure to improve policing in the Western Cape, and is calling for him to step down from his position.

Hill-Lewis blamed the minister for rising crime levels in the province, saying he has repeatedly failed at his job and ensuring the safety of residents.

He said the Western Cape government has been employing additional police in addition to “making up for ongoing police resource shortages in our region”.

The mayor said because of these efforts, police have been enabled to triple the number of arrests in recent years.

Hill-Lewis was responding to Cele’s quarterly crime stats report released on Friday. 

Contrary to minister Cele’s calls for all policing to be centralised under national government, the exact opposite is what is really needed — policing powers need to be devolved to capable provincial and municipal governments.

“As with other areas where local government is capable of delivering a better quality service to its residents, it is time for policing to be properly devolved to functional and capable municipalities,” said Hill-Lewis. 

The Cape Town Central police station topped a list of the 30 stations with the highest number of serious crimes in the first quarter of the year.

It recorded an increase of 54.2% from last year with 2,653 serious crimes from January to March. 

Honeydew station in Gauteng came in second with 2,149 — an increase of 5.6% — followed by Durban Central with 2,037 (11.9%).

Four police stations in the top 30 recorded a lower number compared with the previous year. Among these are Pinetown and Plessislaer in KwaZulu-Natal with 1,516 and 1,494, a decline of 7.7% and 2.1%, respectively.

Kraaifontein in the Western Cape recorded 1,450 cases, a decrease of 1%, and Witbank in Mpumalanga, with 1,366, recorded a decline of 11%.

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