POLICY

The WC government’s security plan is a tragic failure – Brett Herron

Brett Herron |

02 September 2024

According to GOOD SG, it is time for Premier Alan Winde to reallocate resources to tackle the root causes of crime

Crime statistics for the Western Cape province: Provincial government’s security plan is a tragic failure

2 September 2024

The Western Cape Safety Plan has cost the province around R2 billion since its launch in 2019, yet there is no sign of achieving its key performance indicator: reducing the number of murders.

It is time for Prime Minister Alan Winde to reallocate resources to tackle the root causes of crime.

The latest crime statistics released by the Minister of Police show a shocking 27,203 cases of contact crime – including murder, sexual offences and assault – reported in the Western Cape region in the first quarter of 2024 (April 2024 to June 2024).

This is almost 10,000 more reported contact crimes than in the first quarter of 2020, when 16,314 cases were reported in the same period.

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Over the past five years, violent crime in the Western Cape has continued to spiral out of control, despite the provincial government's costly security plan and attempts to establish a provincial policing project.

At the time, Winde claimed he would halve the murder rate within ten years if he provided additional police resources to the ten police districts with the highest murder rates, costing R1.2 billion (for the first four years).

Winde did not disclose that the police would be “police officers in training” with limited powers and very little training – now referred to as “LEAP officers.”

Recently, Winde announced that he had taken funding for the Western Cape Safety Plan from the province's health and education budgets – and last week the province's education department told schools that it would have to cut 2 407 teaching positions from January 2025 due to budget constraints.