Education and Health budgets raided to fund dead-duck Western Cape Safety Plan

30 April 2024

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has revealed that money was shifted from the province’s education and health departments to fund the Western Cape Safety Plan.

Speaking during a debate today, Winde rationalised the Billions of Rands expenditure on the so-called LEAP (quasi-police) programme on his desire to halve the murder rate.

While few would disagree that halving the murder rate is a virtuous goal, the crime statistics show that murder has increased in the very hotspots to which LEAP resources were deployed

Notwithstanding the fact that crime statistics are released quarterly, and are publicly available, the DA is proclaiming its Safety Plan a resounding success.

This leaves the Western Cape in a bind. It can’t afford to pay temporary teachers, build extra classrooms, or rebuild GF Jooste Hospital, because it’s prioritised spending big on a political vanity project that falls outside its mandate and has failed to yield any returns.

The Western Cape Safety Plan was never going to reduce crime because its primary deliverable was to create platforms for Western Cape Government public relations. 

If the DA was serious about reducing crime, it’s had a 15-year stint leading the province to develop a track record of delivering better living environments for people on the Cape Flats, and re-write the City’s apartheid-era template.

Photographs of Winde and Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis with uniformed members of their private police force, with polished boots and shiny guns – while innocent children die weekly in gang war crossfire – speak to the disconnect between the politicians’ lived reality and those of their subjects.

South Africa, including the Western Cape and Cape Town, need more professional and better trained police. We need better crime intelligence, higher ethical standards, closer relations with neighbourhood watches, and more water-tight investigations. 

What Winde is giving the Western Cape and Cape Town does not meet the necessary standards. He should apologise to the education and health sectors for his opportunism and stupid decision-making.

Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of Parliament, 30 April 2024