The Western Cape government says it believes it could be more effective in dealing with crime if it runs the police in the province.
The province’s department of community safety and police oversight says it has lost its confidence in national government’s ability to fight crime, especially after recent attacks in taverns in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
It says it has mechanisms to make the South African Police Service (SAPS) efficient and reduce deadly attacks.
Community Safety and Police Oversight MEC Reagen Allen says the national government has failed communities in how they run SAPS.
“There has been an erosion of trust between the public community and SAPS. But there has also been budgetary constraints and cuts which happens periodically over every quarter that we have seen. So what we are saying is that should the policing powers be dissolved to a provincial government, a costing will be able to follow that. So that the funds required for policing to be manager controlled in Western Cape, should then flow to the Western Cape with the reassignment of such a function,” explains Reagen.
Below is the full interview with MEC Reagen Allen:
