Today I met with the South African Police Service (SAPS) in Stellenbosch to discuss the deployment of crime fighting interventions at a time when murder, drugs and gang related crimes are on the rise.
The Democratic Alliance has called on national government numerous times to prioritise and fast track rural safety units in order to protect our rural communities, who because of their isolated location are vulnerable and become targets.
Sadly, this comes shortly after another member of the farming community, Jeffrey Zetler lost his life in a fatal attack.
Over the past few weeks, I have visited the local police stations throughout my constituency and found that our local SAPS are struggling. In some cases there aren’t enough vehicles to patrol our communities and the allocation of manpower showed a shortage of 30 officers across the whole municipality according to a parliamentary question submitted to the National police minister.
I’ve met with members of the Cloetesville community who told me how shootings have increased while the gangs run their drug operations among the families who live there. Children are no longer safe to play outside and after 6pm it becomes simply too dangerous to be in the streets. We need specialised units to target drug and gang related crimes.
This can no longer continue. By national government ignoring the call for increased policing in our communities, they are ignoring the safety of the people who have placed their trust in them.
I will once again write the National Police Commissioner imploring that more police resources be allocated this area and to implement rural safety units now and increase the resources and manpower to our most vulnerable communities – farmworkers and farmers.
We will not rest until the national government takes active steps to keep communities safe.