Gauteng crime continues to spiral out of control while Lesufi spends money on gimmicks

29 August 2023

The first-quarter crime statistics for the Gauteng Province, released on Tuesday, show that crime continues to spiral out of control in the province - with contact crimes up by as much as 6% - while Premier Panyaza Lesufi spends millions on gimmicks such as his crime wardens’ scheme and Nasi Ispani.

Regardless of Premier Lesufi’s theatrics, official police statistics show that his expensive crime wardens have been simply unable to turn the tide on the province’s spiralling crime rate, and instead, crime has continued to drastically increase. Attempted murder is up 7.2%, common assault is up 11.3% and attempted sexual offences are up a whopping 17%.

ActionSA continues to welcome any initiative to fight crime in the province but believes that the Gauteng Government should empower and capacitate existing law enforcement agencies instead of spending millions on the crime wardens as part of a public relations stunt to create the illusion of taking crime seriously.

We remain concerned about the legality of the crime warden scheme and the possible human rights abuses that may have taken place during the training programme, and we look forward to the outcome of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) investigation of our complaint in this regard.

Despite being in power since 1994, the ruling party has simply been unable to address crime in Gauteng with the situation growing more dire every year. Drastic action is needed to restore the rule of law, and ActionSA looks forward to presenting our policies to fix crime in the province at our upcoming policy conference from 12-14 September.

For too long communities across Gauteng have been left to fend for themselves as politicians and police have been unable to address crime, and ActionSA - a party that values the rule of law - is committed to turning the situation around.          

Issued by Funzi Ngobeni, ActionSA COJ Caucus Leader, 29 August 2023