Cape Town - Angry Gugulethu residents say they are tired of being sidelined and neglected by the government and demand to see action.
They say crime is escalating, allegedly perpetuated by authorities ‘’who turn a blind eye to every concern that is raised through civic groups or individuals’’.
Currently, their major outcry is about poor and untrustworthy policing under the current station commander, Brigadier Nokuthula Pete.
Marc Matebe, the secretary for the Gugulethu Uprising, claimed the station commander has no interest in working with local structures in fighting crime and sowed a seed of division in the community, with the worst being the transfer of top performing officers to stations in well-off communities. They handed over a memorandum of concerns to police.
‘’Obviously, General Thembisile Patekile was in a suburb listening and addressing issues of the recognised citizens, and I wouldn't doubt if he's in a white area. Those areas take priority in our government. Their lives matter the most despite having people dying day in and day out in the townships. We've tried our best to resolve the issues we have with the management, but they just wouldn't listen. We won't sit quietly while our people die like flies and extortion is so rife people can't make a living anymore, and a housing development has been halted for years, with authorities failing to mitigate and improve policing and the overall safety in our community,’’ he said.
Provincial police spokesperson, Brigadier Novela Potelwa, said the issues cited in the memorandum were being considered, with a senior manager appointed to investigate the claims made in the document.
‘’Once all the facts have been established through the investigation, a detailed response to the memorandum will be compiled and communicated with the relevant party.
‘’It begs mentioning that every endeavour is made to capacitate Gugulethu Police Station as it is one of the priority stations in the Western Cape.
‘’In as far as the crime of extortion, SAPS Western Cape, with others in law enforcement, meet regularly to deliberate on the crime of extortion and interventions required. Several cases are under investigation by organised crime detectives with arrests made.’’
She said transfers of SAPS employees are dealt with internally out of respect for the relationship between the employer and employees, ‘’taking into account SAPS labour relations prescripts.’’
Responding to the problem of housing extortion, the City of Cape Town said: ‘’Due to the sensitivity of the matter, the City cannot comment on extortion threats. However, it can be confirmed that additional security over and above that which the contractor must provide in terms of the contract is already being provided by the City for this site.’’
They said the Erf 8448 Gugulethu project site was delayed during 2022 by cash flow challenges on the part of the contractor until temporary relief came to the project by way of the payment of a claim in July.
‘’This enabled the contractor to deliver 23 units in August 2022. However, production slowed down again soon afterwards. After putting the contractors to terms, a project programme was received at the end of January 2023, which indicated that the next batch of 33 units will be delivered in March 2023. This delivery date has been missed, with the contractor citing security challenges as the reason.’’
Wayne Dyason, the spokesperson for City Law Enforcement, said Gugulethu was a Law Enforcement Advancement Plan deployment area, with about 60 officers deployed 24/7.
Nathan Andriaanse, the spokesperson for the provincial Department of Infrastructure, said due to a rape incident as well as the security guard shooting incident on March 6, the contractors’ subcontractors are reluctant to proceed with work without proper security.He said housing units would be handed over in batches, so there should be a regular handover of housing units from May. The remainder of the houses are at various stages of construction.
Deon Makiti, the former chairperson of the Igunya Neighbourhood Watch Federation, said most of these issues would have been prevented if the station worked with the community structures and acknowledged all role players instead. He said the stubbornness of the management was to be blamed for the escalating crime and denied services to residents.