Residents of Marite in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, say they are being terrorized by criminals and they are afraid to report them to the police. Mokoena was speaking during a crime awareness Imbizo held at the Marite Sports Ground. The Imbizo was organised by the Department of Correctional Services, which community members including learners attended.
The Marite community is one of the areas plagued by criminal activities in the province. The residents are grappling with cases of murder, robbery, gender based violence among others. A number of crime awareness campaigns had been held around the area but the problem persists, residents are living in fear.
The locals even refused to speak to the SABC News crew citing safety reasons. Chief Lameck Mokoena says more need to be done to tackle crime in the area.
“But unfortunately, my community are afraid to report because immediately they report they are being targeted. The question is who is telling this people that Kgoshi Mokoena is the one who reported you to the police,” says Mokoena.
“And we are hopeful that today maybe our ancestors and our god will hear us because people are living in fear in this area. And we are just praying that maybe one day it will happen. My call is NPA and our branch commanders in a form of investigators, if the two components don’t meet and make sure that the case are water-tight hence people will be arrested and the following day are out again,” Mokoena adds.
Mpumalanga Police Commissioner Semakaleng Manamela has assured the community that they will be protected whenever reporting criminal activities.
Manamela says, “The suggestion boxes are all over in all the stations of Mpumalanga, the suggestion boxes are there. So, because we are not interested more in names but interested in information.
So even the informers we are having, if the information is concrete, we do have the witness protection that we are ordinarily giving to the community. So, there is no need to panic when the information is there,” he adds.
Correctional Services National Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale says plans are under way to address some of the challenges in the area.
Makgothi says youth are their main targets.
“When we look at the crime statistics, we have realized that young people are the ones perpetuating crime in this area.”
“But also generally, we would want to start there by planting a seed that is positive. So our target is young people. We want to make it a point that we redirect them from crime into different paths,” Makgothi adds.
Three months ago, a Correctional Services official was sprayed with a hail of bullets and it was not the first fatal incident involving an official in the area.
