Eersterust CPF, police meet over crime
"We don’t want to complain. We want to roll up our sleeves and do what we can to help."
Community members of Eersterust and the local police met to discuss a way forward for the CPF in the area.
The meeting was held at the Eersterust police station.
Captain Moses Mokwana, visible policing (vispol) commander of Eersterust police station, emphasised the importance of the community working together with the police to solve crimes.
He urged CPF members to encourage residents to report crimes related to gender-based violence (GBV).
He said that crimes related to GBV were a big concern in the area, but victims were not coming forward to report incidents to the police.
“Drugs are a major problem in Eersterust,” said Mokwana.
Mokwana said police had arrested a total of 23 suspects in April on charges related to drug-related crimes.
He said of the 44 suspects arrested in February of this year, most of them were drug users.
He said police were also investigating unmarked Tuk-Tuks used by criminals to transport drugs around Eersterust.
“We are aware of a yellow and red Tuk-Tuk that is involved. Community members are urged to come forward with information related to the operation of these Tuk-Tuks.”
Derrick Jacobs, chairperson of the Eersterust policing forum, said they needed to establish a community task team that will deal with issues in the area.
He said the community’s morale needed to be boosted and they needed to be more active in issues involving them.
“The CPF is there to oversee the station, they are there to hold the police to account. If you are not there, then you cannot complain about it on social media.
“Something is keeping the community from reporting crime so we need to fix that,” said Jacobs.
Kgothatso Moloto, founder and president of an organisation called Voice It In Action, said the community needed to work together to overcome their problems.
Moloto said it was time for the community to actively come up with solutions.
He said Voice It In Action would work tirelessly to address crime in Eersterust, but only with the help of the community.
He emphasised the importance of involving local youth.
He said that they would work on establishing representatives in schools around the area to help and combat crime.
“For this project, we need everyone to participate. It would be amazing to put Eersterust on the map for reasons other than crime.
“It’s an area where the community is working together to build a stronger, safer, cleaner and sustainable environment for future generations,” said Moloto.
Spokesperson for the local CPF, Anthony ‘Speedo’ Wilson said he joined to try and assist the police in whichever way he could.
“We don’t want to complain. We want to roll up our sleeves and do what we can to help. At the end of the day, the police are helping our community,” said Wilson.
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