Sopa 2023: Lesufi admits Gauteng is home to ‘heartless and merciless’ criminals

Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi admitted that the province is home to “heartless and merciless criminals” during his State of the Province Address (Sopa) on Monday.

Billions allocated

To counteract this problem, Lesufi announced that the government would increase its budget to fight crime.

The premier said during his address that if the situation is left unattended, it would be the end of all of South Africans.

“So the issue of fighting crime should be our apex priority. We should unleash all our resources at our disposal to tackle crime. To this end, we are increasing our budget of fighting crime from R750million to multi-billion in the next three years.”

CCTV

“Starting from the 1st of April 2023, we will start to connect suburb, townships, business districts, schools and other public places with high tech, face and car recognition CCTVs. We will arm our residents with e-Panic buttons that will be linked to our law enforcement agencies, CCTVs and our new state-of-the-art Integrated Command Centre,” he said.

The premier also vowed to assist authorities by procuring 180 “state-of-the-art” drones that will infiltrate areas that are difficult to patrol and police.

READ MORE: Gauteng Sopa 2023: ‘ANC must deliver services or be replaced’ – ActionSA

High-tech drones and police cars

“To ensure that our police are not sacrificial lambs in the battles with criminals, we are at an advanced stage to procure. These drones are equipped with technology that can capture the direction of a bullet and where they come from.”

He announced that since May, 400 new police cars have been procured, and every ward in their respective communities will have a 24 hour patrol car equipped with proper gadgets.

New recruits

The premier also said that 6,000 young men and women have been recruited to monitor and police Gauteng 24/7.

“They will invade our streets from the 1st of May 2023.”

“Almost 10,000 private security companies have agreed to combine their resources with ours under a joint command structure so that we can fight crime together in our province.”

Vehicles legislation

He also stated that legislation pertaining to vehicles need to be urgently amended, to address the registration of cars, “because cars are a common denominator in violent crimes; either stolen or get away vehicles”.

The current number plates system is running out of the numeric and letters, he said.

“We want to take advantage of this situation to introduce new, hard to copy and tamper number plates,” said Lesufi.

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