Role of media to combat crime is acknowledged

MBOMBELA – The MEC for community safety, security and liaison, Mr Vusi Shongwe recently acknowledged the role played by the media in combating crime in the province.

“With the help of the media, notorious criminals like Spykos have been arrested. He was apprehended within seven days.

The media always keep us on our toes and make us work harder and harder, to ensure that life and property of our people are safe, he said during a recent media briefing at which he explained the state of crime in the province.

He called on all members of the community to work hand in hand with law enforcers to ensure that crime was eliminated in the community. He said this year’s statistics showed a significant decline in 14 out of 25 crime categories.

Shongwe added that the Overall Fridays Operation, which consisted of roadblocks and operations on the streets, had yielded significant results in reducing criminal activity. He also thanked members of the community for their continuous support in providing police with tip-offs which usually resulted in arrests.

Although the province showed a decrease in most crimes, there were still areas of concern which included commercial crime, cash-in-transit heists, carjacking, house and robberies, and sexual offences.

“We believe that the introduction of the Sexual Offence Act will help to reduce rape-related cases in the province and ensure that perpetrators are kept behind bars,” said Shongwe.

He mentioned that delays in the finalising of such cases usually had a negative effect on the victims.

In an attempt to deal with bank robberies, Shongwe mentioned that a number of meetings between police and bank managers had been held to address the matter as history showed that most of such activities were usually inside jobs.

He mentioned that Tonga was a concern, as stats showed the highest incidence of crime came from this area, which was “highly infested with business robberies, sexual offences, house breaking and illegal immigrants”.

He said the cause might be the fact that Tonga was on the borders of Mozambique and Swaziland. He mentioned that Maj Gen Phahla had recently been deployed to assist at that police station.

“I think we have done well as a province. Comparatively, we are number one,” he said.

Lt Gen Thulani Ntobela shared his sentiments of victory and attributed these achievements to resourcing police stations in problematic areas with more vehicles and personnel.

“We deployed two vehicles per sector to increase police visibility,” he said.

Families of rape victims were urged to report all sexual offences to the police, regardless of how the perpetrator was related to the victim.