Dying diggers of Namaqualand need saving
| by Gizella Opperman, MP – DA Constituency Head of Hantam & Karoo Hogland |
| Date: 18 October 2019 |
| Release: Immediate |
| The Democratic Alliance together with the community of Brandvlei in the Northern Cape today protested against an increasingly unsafe environment, also handing over a petition for the attention of the Safety MEC, Nontobeko Vilakazi, appealing to her to address the chronic lack of visible policing in the area. Find pictures here, here, here and here. Violent crime in the Brandvlei area has significantly escalated over the past few months. A local resident was recently hacked to death in her home and just two weeks ago a teenage girl allegedly stabbed her mother to death.The DA believes that one of the underlying causes of the growing crime levels is a dire lack of visible policing.Early last year, Provincial Police Commissioner General Risimati Shivuri promised that the towns of Brandvlei, Middelpos and Sutherland would all receive additional vehicles. It is now 18 months later and there has been no improvement in the vehicle situation.Brandvlei is equipped with only a single police van, making visible policing impossible. The police van from Middelpos was in for repairs from January until April this year. After a single week on the province’s rural roads, it was back in for repairs, so there is no operational police van in Middelpos. The same situation prevails in Sutherland, where the single police van spends more time in for repairs more than what it is actually in use.In our petition, we are therefore calling on SAPS to not only allocate more vehicles to our rural towns but also to evaluate whether the current make of the vehicles being procured by SAPS, in the form of Great Wall Motors (GWM), are actually suitable for the Northern Cape’s gravel roads.We hope that MEC Vilakazi will take our concerns seriously, as the most basic tools of the trade are essential to take policing forward.In the near future, the DA will also seek to engage with agricultural unions on the DA’s Rural Safety Plan that takes a community focused approach to rural safety. This includes up-scaling community policing, the establishment of Rural Community Policing Units, as well as extensive use of technology and greater police visibility to keep rural residents safe.We all need to work together and play our part in bringing back law and order in our communities. We just hope that the government and SAPS are willing to put their political differences aside so that we can speedily address the rural safety crisis in our province and our country before more lives are lost. |
Related posts