Activist's West Rand home is now a place for people to report crimes

A Gauteng man has turned his house into a “police station” for residents to report crimes and have their statements taken because his neighbourhood, Tshepisong, on the West Rand, does not have one.

Jeremy Ndaba-Ndaba’s house also serves as a haven for victims of gender-based violence (GBV) where they can be temporarily accommodated and receive counselling from professional social workers. 

Ndaba-Ndaba has been living in Tshepisong since 2016 and became a member of a street committee to fight criminals. His crime-fighting efforts won him recognition from the department of social development in 2021 when then MEC Faith Mazibuko launched the Green Door Project.

The initiative was designed to provide safe spaces and support services to GBV victims. Ndaba-Ndaba was selected to work with victims and was provided with a Wendy house on his property to accommodate them for short periods.

“When the project began, I was appointed by the department because they noticed my name always came up when people were seeking help, and receiving it as well,” Ndaba-Ndaba said.  

Before his crime activism work, he was living an ordinary life and running a small business to make a living for his wife and four children. 

Ndaba-Ndaba said his community had to travel 12km to the Roodepoort police station to report crimes. Many use public transport to get to the police, but minibus taxis are not available at night.

Ndaba-Ndaba’s house has become the first point of contact for many victims of crime in Tshepisong. He has been trained to take statements from them, debrief them and refer them to the police in Roodepoort. “People here face a lot of problems whenever they report crime,” he said.

“When calling the station about an active crime, police respond after three hours. Right now, residents are coming to me to open cases, and I call the police to attend to those crimes and redraft statements. We have an issue with police visibility in the area and to get to the station in Roodepoort we must pay R16 for a taxi.”

Ndaba-Ndaba said because he works closely with the police and knows them personally, he is able to call them when someone reports crimes — and they respond swiftly.

However, his anti-crime work means he has to make some sacrifices and there are days when he doesn’t sleep because people start lining up outside his house from 6am. He said in a day he can record up to eight crimes and up to five GBV cases. 

“I was provided with a bed here [in the Wendy house] because I get women and children coming in the morning after their partners have chased them away. I have to open for them so they can sleep.”

Residents of Tshepisong said common crimes in the area were house robberies and hijackings. 

Reginah Sibanda, 39, recalled that when her neighbour was hijacked and criminals loaded her furniture into her car and escaped, the police took more than three hours to come to the victim’s house.

“Often police would tell us that they do not have enough cars and are still attending to a different crime scene, and that they will come back to us after they are done. There is no sense of urgency for our safety, we are on our own,” she said.

Gauteng police spokesperson Brig Brenda Muridili said it was not feasible for every community or area to have its own police station.

“It's not practical,” she said. “Every police station services more than one community. Roodepoort has its informal settlements and a CBD. It will not happen that a community, though it has a population of 100,000, will have its own police station,” she said.

Muridili said according to an efficiency index, which is used to determine all the resources needed for a police station, the “Roodepoort police station is resourced enough to police its precinct”.

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