Note to Editors: Please see attached soundbite by Nicholas Gotsell MP
The DA has written to the South African Police Services’ (SAPS) Western Cape Provincial Commissioner in response to a continuing capacitation crisis at the Western Cape Anti-Gang Unit, amid notable lack of will from senior management.
The DA sees this action as a matter of last resort, after continuous engagement – but if this last resort is ignored, we will be forced to use the pull powers of Parliament to ensure that the Unit is held to account to become fully operational.
The Unit was launched in 2018, in response to mass gang violence, yet its operations have deteriorated, which the DA uncovered in a recent unannounced oversight inspection:
- Luxury BMW SUVs were purchased, which SAPS could not afford to maintain, and today only half of the Unit’s vehicles are operational.
- Detectives do not have offices and work in makeshift conditions.
- 210 SAPS members share three toilets, which have no cleaners.
- There are repeated water outages, unreliable connectivity and telephones that do not work.
In the conditions, it is impossible for officers to keep communities safe to the best of their abilities.
Living in the Cape Flats risks becoming a death sentence, with three innocent lives lost each day and more than twenty lives lost weekly – amounting to more than eighty each month. Communities cannot live in peace, as gangs run riot and residents fearing they will be murdered next. This cannot continue as the Anti-Gang Unit continues to deteriorate.
One mother, in the space of just less over a year, has lost two children, who were killed by runaway bullets while they sat inside their home, without proper protection from the Anti-Gang Unit meant to prevent this.
The DA does not seek conflict with SAPS’ Management – but we will do all in our power to see the SAPS succeed, so that they can save lives.