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Cele, Western Cape officials to discuss crime fighting plan

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The Western Cape Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz says the Police Minister Bheki Cele will on Saturday morning meet with provincial officials in Paarl to discuss a broader crime fighting plan.

Fritz says he is relieved that the Western Cape is finally getting national attention in as far as fighting crime is concerned.

“I wanted just to call on my community to be patient. Let the South African Defence Force prepare properly before they come here and they are busy settling in. Just be patient but I must say there’s a lot of visible policing on the Cape Flats and I’m very, very happy about that.”

Meanwhile, Cele’s spokesperson Reneilwe Serero says deploying the army to the Cape Flats is by no means an admission that the police have failed to do their job.

“The army is coming in to support the police. There is already a large contingency of police that have already been deployed; they started walking the streets, doing searches, making arrests as well.

“So they are here to make sure we maintain law and order in this part of the Western Cape and in any other volatile areas. Not only will they be focusing on Phillipi East, but they’re focusing on a broader Western Cape where we have noticed a high rate of crime and murders,” Serero explains.

State of emergency

Meanwhile the Western Cape Policing Forum Board is calling for the declaration of the state of emergency as a means to curb rampant crime on the Cape Flats.

They say over 2000 people have been murdered this year alone. The group held a picket outside parliament.

Policing Forum Board Chairperson, Fransina Lukas says they met with Cele to ask for more police visibility.

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