The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) notes and welcomes the tabling of the Gauteng Crime Statistics for the third quarter of the 2020/21 period.                                                              

Yesterday Gauteng Provincial Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela, presented the latest quarterly Crime Statistics and the Gauteng SAPS 2019/20 Annual Report to the Legislature’s Portfolio Committee for Community Safety. A notable improvement in police performance is the 9.6% decrease in the prevalence of community reported crimes. According to the Commissioner, this is 2.1% above the police’s target. This is largely due to most of the quarter falling within the national lockdown.

However, the IFP wishes to express its disappointment at the underperformance of SAPS in combating domestic violence-related crimes in the province. For instance, sexual offences and murder increased by 6% and 7.5% respectively, compared to the same period in 2019. In this regard, the police - and indeed, all of society - have to shoulder the burden of reducing the persistent scourge of gender-based violence in particular, and other violent crimes in general.                                                       

The national Crime Statistics show that in Quarter 3 of 2020, Gauteng had the highest number of rape cases, and second-highest number of murder cases reported in the country. During the same period, the province experienced over 100% increase in incidents of cash-in-transit heists, and an over 30% increase in truck hijackings, compared to the same time last year.                                                                                                                                                                                            

The uptick in these crimes points to the need to boost the skills and training capacity of police intelligence, so as to aid in the early detection and prevention of criminal acts. Furthermore, the occurrence of these crimes in our public spaces indicates that more collaboration is needed between police and communities to win this war on crime. Community safety is a collective responsibility and we must all work together to ensure a safe and crime-free environment in our province.

Issued by IFP