The Western Cape Department of Community Safety and Police Oversight last week briefed the Western Cape Provincial Parliament on the progress of its 2022-’23 Policing Needs and Priorities (PNP) Report, which indicated a severe shortage of forces to safeguard the province.
“While the report clearly shows Saps has lost its ability to police the Western Cape effectively, it also provides a raft of recommendations to improve the state of safety in the province,” said the DA’s Western Cape spokesperson for Community Safety, Gillion Bosman.
The PNP report, which is compiled yearly, includes consultative talks with each of the province’s police districts. Nearly a thousand participants took part in these engagements for the 2022-’23 PNP report.
As has been the trend for a few of years, the department showed a concerning decline in police resource allocation to the Western Cape over the last decade, Bosman pointed out.
“Whereas the number of Saps staff in the Western Cape stood at 22 011 in 2011-’12, Saps numbers stood at 18 867 in 2021-’22”, which is at least 3 144 far below what is needed to properly police the Western Cape.
“Critically, Saps has failed to meet its own target of 20 000 for personnel allocation in the Western Cape since 2019-’20, indicating the national government has failed to provide enough resources to police the Western Cape since the pandemic.”
The department revealed that in some precincts the Western Cape Government’s Leap officers now outnumber police members.
The vacancy rate in Western Cape Saps remains high, with even funded positions remaining unfilled.
“This means Saps has the necessary budget to hire more personnel within the Western Cape, but has simply failed to do so,” Bosman insisted.
“In [Thursday’s] briefing the department’s representatives strongly recommended these positions be filled as soon as possible, with an emphasis on the Saps precincts which serve the most violence-afflicted areas.”
However, while the department’s presentation calls for a greater allocation of resources to the Western Cape from the police ministry it also recommends an expansion and enhancement of local law-enforcement capacity.
This includes the provision of a training college for municipal Law Enforcement officers and a provincial vetting service for municipalities wishing to hire officers.
Further key recommendations from the briefing include:
. A greater emphasis on targeted policing of crime hotspots, and a greater emphasis on responding to high-risk repeat offenders;. Expanding the City of Cape Town’s Shot-Spotter project;. Expanding the Anti-Gang Unit, and strengthening its capacity at the District level;. Reviewing the mandate of Public Order Policing Units and developing clearer, more stringent protocols surrounding the use of rubber bullets and the marshalling of protest actions;. Ensuring continuous power supply to Saps facilities and insulating law-enforcement resources against pervasive rolling blackouts.
Speaking after the presentation’s conclusion on Thursday, Bosman said: “Today’s briefing made it abundantly clear greater autonomy and decentralisation is desperately needed to make the Western Cape safer.”
To him the national government’s insistence on greater centralisation is only hurting the people of the Western Cape, especially when it is seemingly incapable of providing adequate resources in order to keep the province safe.
“We have to give our provincial government the necessary powers to pursue its approach to law enforcement, which has in many cases proven to be superior to that of Saps.”
