SONA a missed chance to restore hope on policing and rail
10 February 2023
‘We were glad to host the President at City Hall yesterday evening, but he seems to have not realised he was speaking in a City where passenger rail has collapsed, and is now servicing just 2% of Capetonians daily when it should be the backbone of an affordable, reliable, and safe transport system. We had hoped to hear of the fast-tracked devolution of passenger rail to cities so that we can get Cape Town’s once-strong train service running again together with the private sector.
‘It also seems lost on the President that he was being hosted in a City where police are majorly under-resourced while gang, gun and drug crime rages on with innocent people, including children, caught in the cross-fire. Yet conviction rates for gang crime are in the lower single digits.
‘All the President said was that SAPS continues with its routine annual national recruitment. There was no news of a special deployment of policing resources to our region, where 71% of police stations are under-resourced. And crucially, the President said nothing about devolving more policing powers to well-trained municipal law enforcement officers to help SAPS fight crime. Our officers are already out there taking guns and drugs off the streets daily, but with more policing powers they can build prosection-ready case dockets and gain convictions to bring lasting change in high-crime areas,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.
The Mayor said he had again written to National Ministers this week regarding the devolution of powers.