POLL | Do you think the crime prevention wardens will make a difference?

The appointment of more than 4,000 crime prevention wardens (CPWs) in Gauteng has been met with mixed reactions.

The wardens, who underwent three months of training and will be assigned to hotspots in the province, graduated over the weekend. The first group of 3,200 began patrolling the streets on Monday. They will be joined by a second group at the end of May.

“The CPWs will initially focus on 361 wards in the township and informal settlement areas and later expand across Gauteng.

“Permanent employment opportunities for the wardens will be extended to include helicopter and drone pilots. Locally manufactured vehicles will be procured to fight crime and enable the wardens to patrol communities,” said Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi.

The next step would be to connect suburbs, townships, businesses, schools and public places with hi-tech face and car recognition CCTV cameras.

While some have welcomed the recruits, claiming they will add much-needed reinforcements in the fight against crime, others questioned their effectiveness.

Among the concerns was the selection process, limited training period and lack of a central command centre, panic buttons or full CCTV monitoring, which are yet to be rolled out.

Lesufi denied suggestions sending out the recruits without these was reckless because the wardens will have “a number” to communicate and work with.

“The command centre has to be an integrated facility. We are integrating it with Gautrain and Sanral’s gantries. We have to get permission to gain access to these. Municipalities also have cameras and we need to have access to them. That is why the command centre is being reconfigured.

“When we unveil the CCTV and command centre we will be in a position to unveil the panic buttons. They are at an advanced stage. They are testing them. We’ve done the proposals and budgeting and we are having them tested,” Lesufi said.

He said 21,000 had applied to be wardens. A total of 10,650 applicants were shortlisted for the next stage and 6,000 candidates made it to the training stage. Only 4,000 graduated.

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said he had “serious concerns” about the CPW programmes.

“One cannot take unemployed youth and give them three months' training, equip them with guns  and then deploy them to ‘fight crime’. And this without an operational  command centre to oversee them. A recipe for disaster.”

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