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The Western Cape Department of Community Safety and Police Oversight today briefed the Western Cape Provincial Parliament on the progress of its 2022/2023 Policing Needs and Priorities (PNP) Report, which evaluates the state of policing in the Western Cape. While the report clearly shows that the SAPS has lost its ability to effectively police the Western Cape, it also provided a raft of recommendations to improve the state of safety in the province.

The PNP report is compiled yearly, and incorporates consultative engagements with each of the Western Cape’s police districts. Almost a thousand participants took part in PNP engagements for the 2022/2023 PNP report.

As has been the trend for a number of years, the Department’s presentation showed a substantial decline in SAPS resource allocation to the Western Cape over the last decade. Whereas the number of SAPS staff in the Western Cape stood at 22 011 in 2011/2012, SAPS numbers stood at 18 867 in 2021/2022 – far below what is needed to police the province. Critically, SAPS has failed to meet its own target of 20 000 for personnel allocation in the Western Cape since 2019/2020, indicating that 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 SAPS members.

The vacancy rate in Western Cape SAPS remains high, with even funded positions remaining unfilled. This means that SAPS has the necessary budget to hire more personnel within the Western Cape, but has simply failed to do so. In today’s briefing, the Department’s representatives strongly recommended that these positions are 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 which wish 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 develop 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, DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Community Safety Gillion Bosman said: ”Today’s briefing made it abundantly clear that greater autonomy and decentralisation is desperately needed in order to make the Western Cape safer. 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 to keep our 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.”

Issued by Gillion Bosman, MPP - DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Community Safety