Underreporting of crime may see Ballito become easy pickings for criminals

Crime is a consistent issue in Ballito, but the lack of reporting on it is leaving local police stations under-resourced.

With Covid-19 seeing many people desperate, the past 6 weeks have seen an increase in crime, says Ballito UIP security manager Dieter Fittkau, previously the acting station commander at Umhlali Saps.

Although the official crime stats from Umhlali Saps are not released to the public, Ballito Neighbourhood Watch (BNW) vice-chairman Morne Steffens provided the Courier with incidents reported to the BNW over the last 3 months.

July had 4 positive break-ins, 4 attempted break-ins, 1 theft from an open property, 1 attempted vehicle theft and a card scammer’s arrest.

August had 8 positive break-ins, 3 attempted break-ins, 3 vehicle thefts, 1 attempted vehicle theft and 1 case of street sign vandalism.

September had 10 positive break-ins, 3 attempted break-ins and 3 vehicles thefts.

“The stats quoted here are only incidents reported to the BNW through its WhatsApp street cluster members, there are no doubt more incidents that have occurred,” he said.

“It should also be noted that on a number of the positive break-ins, residents had not armed their home alarms, this is of critical importance,” said Steffens.

The underreporting of crime is a serious issue in Ballito, as people in the area are generally insured and may not think their cases are likely to be solved, said Fittkau.

This directly leads to lower crime numbers being recorded at the police stations, which translates to lower budgets for the following year, he said.

“It means that when a good arrest is made, there may be no way for detectives to link it to other crimes because no case has been opened for them. Repeat offenders may only be caught for a single crime as a result,” said Fittkau.

Ballito is also a popular holiday destination, and holidaymakers are often unwilling to open cases with the police.

“They do not open a case as they do not want to return to the area at a later stage to appear in court,” said Steffens.

Although crime is ongoing in Ballito, the closest police station is the Umhlali Saps, and it will remain that way if crime stats are not correctly recorded,

“The local police station will never qualify for extra policing let alone another police station, or even a satellite station if the crime level warrants these requests as unjustified,” said Steffens.

iLembe Chamber of Commerce CEO Cobus Oelofse said additional police stations were something which have been lobbied for on multiple occasions,

“It is an issue that is under constant review with our regional Saps Cluster. Temporary and mobile Saps stations, during peak trading times in appropriate locations are also on the table for discussion,” he said.

Umhlali Saps were unable to provide comment on whether the level of crime in Ballito justified a separate police station.