Appeal for more police resources in Phoenix, KZN

Member of the Phoenix Community Policing Forum, north of Durban, Umesh Singh says he believes that under-resourced police stations are a contributing factor to the crime rate in KwaZulu-Natal. Police Minister Bheki Cele released the crime statistics for the fourth quarter of the 2022-2023 financial year on Tuesday.

The Phoenix Police Station is ranked sixth in the country for the number of serious crimes reported. Singh says police and local community crime-fighting structures that work together, can change the tide on crime.

“If you look at the number of people within our policing area, they are a bit under-resourced. They need more vehicles and staff to assist our members in the field because we’ve got plenty voluntary members out in the field and they need support. So, by each sector having a vehicle that’s going to be working together with our members in the field it will make a huge difference and create visibility,” says Singh.

Meanwhile, spokesperson for the eThekwini Neighborhood Watch, Boni Mthiyane is appealing to government to financially support them in their crime fighting efforts.

“As eThekwini neighbourhood watch we are very proud that there are areas that we’ve contributed in preventing crime, for example in carjacking’s, vans and theft of motor vehicles. What makes our contribution a success is how coordinated we are as a group, we are very good at coordinating as everyone is on radios and knows where they should be and we have stretched a large area from Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu. So, when a perpetrator takes a car in Inanda and hijacks it, it’s very rare that car will go to KwaMashu without passing Ntuzuma because in there we also have a vigilant neighbourhood watch team that would stop that car,” says Mthiyane.