In early 2019, the DA-led Saldanha Bay municipality introduced a new fleet of vehicles to its public safety department. The aim of this department is to ensure the safety of all residents and visitors in the municipal area and consists of four subsections – traffic operations, traffic management, law enforcement, and security and fire services.
Eleven new vehicles were added to the municipality’s fleet to carry out the department’s new decentralized model – which divides traffic and law enforcement into a north and south region – and to increase visible law enforcement in all towns across the municipality.
The total cost of this fleet was just under R3.5 million and was budgeted for in the 2018/2019 capital expenditure budget. Four of the vehicles were allocated to law enforcement and security and the remaining seven were allocated to traffic.
In the 2016 local government elections, the Democratic Alliance made a promise to make communities safer through prioritising the establishment of municipal law enforcement services for traffic policing and crime prevention. Executive mayor Marius Koen said that the new fleet in the DA-led municipality delivers on this promise and will ensure more effective and efficient enforcement of road traffic and by-law offences.
