Note to Editors: The following speech was delivered by DA Leader and Cape Town Mayoral Candidate, Geordin Hill-Lewis, during the party’s Stronger Policing Pledge march in Delft, Cape Town today.
Pictures are attached here, here, here and here.
Good morning, Delft.
Thank you, Premier Winde, Councillor Masiu, Alderman Smith, and every public representative who marched with us this morning.
And thank you, most of all, to the hundreds of you who walked from Oakdale Street to be here.
Thank you for marching with me. Thank you for standing here, in Zandkloof Street, where this community said “enough.”
Three months ago, four people were murdered on this street. A thirteen-year-old boy.
Three grown men. Shot, execution-style, in a granny flat metres from where we are standing right now.
To this day, nobody has been arrested.
I want to say this plainly: the tragedy that happened here was not inevitable. It was not bad luck. We must never, ever accept that this is “just how things are” on the Cape Flats.
This is result of a police service that does not have enough detectives to investigate the crimes committed against you.
And here is the number that should make every South African angry: right now, across Cape Town’s police stations, there are close to two hundred vacant detective posts. Two hundred empty desks. Two hundred detectives who should be investigating gang murders, rapes, robberies, the Zandkloof Street case among them. But these cases are moving slower than they should, or not moving at all, because the person meant to investigate them isn’t there.
That is a choice, made in Pretoria by the national SAPS, year after year, budget after budget.
And the people who pay for that choice are not politicians. They are families in Delft, in Nyanga, in Manenberg, in Mitchells Plain — ordinary people, who bury their children and family members, and who then wait, and wait, and wait for a knock on the door that never comes. Or a phone call that never comes.
That’s why I have pushed so hard, and made the arguments, for the devolution of policing powers to competent Metro Police services.
Increasingly I am convinced this is now urgent and essential for South Africa’s future, if we are to beat crime.
As Mayor, I’ve now worked with three different Police Ministers.
Each time we’ve asked for the same thing: give investigative powers to Cape Town’s Metro Police so that we can help SAPS investigate violent crimes, and make sure we actually get convictions.
Three times those Ministers have whispered sweet nothings in my ear, promising me the world and delivering nothing.
Three times I’ve thought to myself, surely the Minister of Police wants to beat crime, so this is such an obviously good idea that it will happen – it’s just a matter of time.
And, you know what, three times I’ve been lied to.
The fact is our national government is not serious about winning the war on crime.
We are serious.
The DA is the only party in South Africa serious about winning the war on crime.
So today I am not just here to march. I am here to announce what we are going to do about it.
With your support in November, we will build South Africa’s first Metro Police Detective Branch.
We will recruit, train and deploy dedicated Metro Police investigators to work gang violence, firearms and drug-related cases. Building the dockets, gathering the evidence, and doing the proper police work that turns an arrest into a conviction.
This is not a pilot. This is not a promise for some distant future. We start doing this the day after this election on 5 November.
Because here is what I believe, and what I will keep saying for as long as I hold this office: crime is not inevitable, and communities should not be left to live in fear.
South Africa can work for everyone — and it starts with catching, convicting, and removing criminals from our streets.
Now, I know what some in the Union Buildings will say. They will say policing is a national competency. They will say the City has no business building a detective capability.
And to them I say: we will no longer wait for SAPS to start doing its job. Because for years, this City has asked, formally and repeatedly, for the power to help SAPS close this gap. We have already taken this through every proper channel available to us.
Now we must stop asking nicely and just do it. And we must take the fight to SAPS and the national government.
If we have to, we will go to court to force the issue — because the Cooperation Agreement between this City and SAPS was signed in good faith, and it is time SAPS and national government were held to it.
SAPS is failing this city twice over. It is failing to fill its own detective posts, so cases never get investigated and criminals go free.
And it is failing to let this City step in and help, even when we have offered, again and again, to help.
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot fail to do the job yourself and then block the people who are willing to do it.
That is neglect, dressed up in a police uniform.
But I did not come to Zandkloof Street this morning only to tell you what is broken. I came to tell you what is possible. Because where the DA governs, we have shown that government can work. We have shown that a City can run clean books, deliver real services, and put resources where the crime is worst.
Now we build the tools to finish the job — a Cape Town Detective Branch to fill the gap SAPS has left, and the legal power to make sure that gap never opens this wide again.
To every family on this street, and every family across the Cape Flats living with the same fear: you are not forgotten. We marched here today because Zandkloof Street deserves justice, and because every neighbourhood in this city deserves the chance to build a better life without fear standing in the way.
I have said before, and I will say it again: I am relentlessly optimistic about what this city and this country can become. Not because our challenges are small — they are not.
But because I have seen, in ward after ward, what happens when government simply does its job with honesty and hard work. That is what we are offering Cape Town.
This is how we will take Cape Town forward.
Not another politician coming to this city and talking about crime.
But a track record of growing the City’s Metro Police by over 1300 new officers in one term of office to fight crime.
And now, with your support, a detective branch that investigates crime, and a fight for the power to do that so that each crime is investigated and every criminal knows they will not get away with it.
This is how we will take Cape Town forward for everyone.
Thank you.