Drones, helicopters and panic buttons – these were some of the bold promises made by premier Panyaza Lesufi yesterday in his speech waging war against Gauteng thugs.
Lesufi, who delivered his maiden state of the province address (Sopa) on Monday, described crime fighting as his government’s top priority.
“Today, let’s openly admit that our province is home to heartless criminals and they do as they wish. If left unattended, it will be the death of us,” he said.
Lesufi announced an increase in the budget to fight crime. He said this would be increased from R750m to more than R1bn over the next three years.
“We will arm our residents with e-panic buttons that will be linked to our law enforcement agencies, CCTVs and our new state-of-the-art integrated command centre.
“We will unveil two new helicopters at the beginning of the next financial year and add four additional helicopters within the 2023/2024 budget cycle. The private security industry has pledged to add theirs as well to the pool of helicopters that will patrol our skies,” he said.
He added that almost 10,000 private security companies had agreed to combine their resources with the province under a joint command structure in order to fight crime together.
“To ensure that our police are not sacrificial lambs in the battles with criminals, we are at an advanced stage to procure 180 state-of-the-art drones that will infiltrate areas that are difficult to patrol and police. These drones are equipped with technology that can capture the direction of a bullet and where they come from,” Lesufi said.
The premier said together with the private security industry his government had found a solution that will assist in tracking stolen guns and locate them wherever they are in the country. “If we can’t remove illegal guns, illegal guns will remove us,” he said.
He also announced the procurement of 400 new police cars so that from May 1, every ward in the province would have a 24-hour patrol car equipped with proper gadgets.
The premier said an amendment to the registration of cars, elimination of illegal guns and migration to using less cash for business transactions was needed to strengthen the fight against crime.
Lesufi’s maiden Sopa, which was highly focused on combating crime, comes days after police minister Bheki Cele tabled the latest crime statistics, which revealed that 82 people were killed daily in SA between October and December last year.
Focusing on Gauteng, Cele’s third quarter crime statics for the 2022/2023 financial year revealed an increase in serious crime, from 107,815 to 115,478. Rape went up to 2,471 from 2,356 while robbery of residential homes increased from 1,992 to 2,130.
National chairperson for the Security Association SA, Louis Mkhathoni, said the move by government to work with private security was long overdue. “We are the eyes and ears of the community and of law enforcement, which are the police.
“If you reflect back to July 2021 on what happened in the country, the only prevalent law enforcement which was actually seen during the riots was private security. If it was not for security presence in some of those areas, it could have been worse than what we experienced. It’s a no brainer,” Mkhathoni said.
“We understand that fighting crime is a mammoth task, they cannot do it alone. If you look at the number of police officers in the country compared to the number of security guards, it is [security guards] far more. And with collaboration we can certainly do more.”
He said the private security, which is far more advanced when it comes to technology, could teach the government a thing or two about new innovations the industry uses to monitor criminal activity.
The South African National Security Employers Association welcomed the premier’s announcement.
“This could also be rolled out in other provinces, but the premier can only do so much with the resources he has. We need collaborations across all sectors such as education and boosting the economy so we can create an environment where people are employed and do not resort to crime for survival,” said Jan du Toit, the association's Gauteng chairperson.
With a huge land invasion problem in the province due to, in part, migration from other provinces, part of the interventions announced by Lesufi included the establishment of a 24-hour anti-land invasion tactical unit aimed at ensuring informal settlements don’t escalate. Lesufi said the unit would be equipped and backed by legal brains to stop the lawlessness of invading other people’s land easily.
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