Provincial government visits Sunnyside to address stubborn crime

The Gauteng Legislature Portfolio Committee on Community Safety recently conducted a site visit to the Sunnyside police station as it was identified as one of the top 40 poor-performing stations in the latest crime stats.

The third-quarter crime stats covered the period from October 1 to December 31, 2024.

Portfolio committee chairperson Dr Bandile Masuku met Sunnyside police station commander Brigadier Matshidiso Kgoadi, Sunnyside CPF chairperson Sandile Dube, and ward councillors Shaun Wilkinson (Ward 59), Shimmy Mashinga (Ward 92) and Mpho Lwele (Ward 81).

They were joined by other stakeholders such as private security companies and police personnel.

The six Sunnyside police precincts have battled increased sexual offences (mainly in sectors 4 and 5), lack of visible policing and theft from motor vehicles.

With over 109 645 people living in Sunnyside (as per Stats SA 2024 Mid-year estimate) local police find themselves fighting an uphill battle against rampant crime.

The Sunnyside police station is meant to accommodate 307 personnel across various departments though they currently have 278, consisting of 167 visible police members, 74 detectives and 37 support staff members.

Sunnyside currently has 61 vehicles despite being granted 69, 10 of which are currently in the garage being repaired.

Among the top causes of the crimes in the precinct are drug addiction, economic pressure, opportunity, criminal history, firearm accessibility and thrill-seeking, among many others.

Police have implemented various methods to combat the ongoing crime in the area through the Integrated Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy (ICVPS), a holistic government approach to crime-fighting in communities.

Interventions using the ICVPS include:

– Two case flow management meetings with the Department of Justice to ensure efficient handling of cases.

– Engaging community members at an early level through programmes such as Adopt-A-Cop, school dialogues and surprise school searches. Three dialogues were held, and 1 500 learners and four schools were searched in the third quarter.

– Ensuring at least 50% of staff members are trained in victim support programmes (currently six places of safety in the station precinct).

– Improved partner policing among other law-enforcement agencies (private security, Gauteng Traffic, Metro police, etc.)

– Safety through environment designs, addressing areas that give opportunity for crime due to poor lighting or abandoned buildings.

– Active and public participation in the community through joint operations, awareness campaigns, imbizos, student awareness and more.

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The station currently has 74 registered informants who also help gather crime intelligence in the area and are in partnership with 10 private security companies.

Some of the environmental factors that impede policing in Sunnyside include bad and hi-jacked buildings, an influx of undocumented persons and their employment as well as the theft and damage to electrical infrastructure (cables and railway stations).

Other challenges hindering the station also include a lack of office space, vagrants who sleep outside of businesses or break into bad/abandoned buildings, not enough parking space for state vehicles, and territorial disputes among foreign nationals.

The station aims to engage more with foreign nationals during imbizos, social development to organise re-location programmes for vagrants and increase office space with the help of ward councillors. It also plans to continue working with Home Affairs in joint operations to address the influx of undocumented foreign nationals.

Dube said that the profile of the Sunnyside community changes each year and there is a student community that has taken over contributing to higher amounts of sexual assaults.

“You find a lot of students in the community these days as opposed to the past. Property groups in the area are selling all their flats and blocks and converting them into accommodations. Students are very active, Sunnyside is an entertainment zone, and they will go to these entertainment places without knowing the dangers.

“One prominent issue is drinking spiking when you’re at a restaurant or club, the moment they see you’re dizzy, they take you with them, rob you of your belongings or sexually assault you,” Dube said.

Another concerning criminal practice in the area is pepper spraying, especially on Robert Sebokwe Street.

“There is a shortage of visible policing, and we are very happy with their performance despite the shortage. When you have minus 22 members, that will impact visible policing. Before I came to this meeting, one of the caretakers at a block of flats asked me to report that residents want to see more visible policing,” Dube said.

Ward 81 councillor Mpho Lewele said he is in talks with the Arcadia CID regarding spreading to Sunnyside, saying that it will assist in dealing with crime and vagrancy. Lewele insisted that quarterly meetings continue with local stakeholders.

“One of the challenges regarding cable theft and darkening our streets is that we have a lot of vagrants fiddling with our infrastructure. We need to make sure that all the scrapyards are moved out of the inner city and taken to the industrial area of Pretoria West. It will make our lives a lot easier,” Lewele said.

Ward 59 councillor Shaun Wilkinson said Sunnyside is an urban township and people may reside in their units but they try to live on the streets where they can, and engagement with metro police is vital to crime-fighting in the area.

“I noticed the TMPD Chief on social media kicking down doors and standing on cables and a lot of public awareness of her ability to shut down nightclubs. I think it’s a flash in the pan,” Wilkinson said. “It’s pure publicity, it’s not a follow-thorough or continuous engagement. I could not see the videos where the Sunnyside SAPS were involved, it looked like a TMPD task force,” he said.

“There’s a situation where we are having a separation when there should be more cohesion. TMPD does by-laws and VAT-law enforcement when they don’t work hand-in-glove with SAPS. It comes off as a favour from SAPS when they do by-law enforcement, not that it’s in their jurisdiction. That is when we have situations like at George Brink Park where people drink in front of children, they smoke dagga and get aggressive. We call visible policing which should assist us immediately but TMPD doesn’t come for a few days,” Wilkinson said.

Whilst answering questions posed by attendees Brigadier Matshidiso Kgoadi said the station currently has 10 cells with the capacity to hold 50 offenders and space is an issue that needs urgent addressing.

“The detective space as previously alluded to, the status quo remains. When you’re a detective sitting in the supply chain office, it becomes difficult for you to work on that docket, especially when the national directive is that each detective must have an allocated space to lock their dockets. For now, we haven’t experienced any loss of dockets but it becomes an issue as they don’t have space in the office,” Kgoadi said.

The station commander acknowledged a high number of sexual assaults and stated that they typically occur around the festive period.

“Yes, we do have a lot of cases that are being reported, especially during December. We had (I think) 90 that were reported and when we checked those cases, most were withdrawn at court because some of the ladies reported to be awarded money. If they are not paid, they open cases.

As police officers, we become sceptical. In rape cases, we picked up a good three or four of those cases.”

Kgoadi confirmed there is a lot of spiking at taverns and nightclubs. “They wake up in a place they don’t know, not having consented to sexual acts.”

The brigadier advised men of this practice and cautioned them from engaging in it. “If an alleged victim goes through a medical procedure and intercourse is determined to have occurred, they can be arrested.

“The body of a lady is not for sale, you will end up in a cell. The exchange of money and spiking has increased the number of sexual assaults a lot,” she said.

She said the area does not have CCTV cameras and that she is in contact with the mayor to have them installed on every street.

She also blamed theft out of cars and muggings on vagrancy and the foreign influx.

“I think that Sunnyside has more vagrants than Pretoria Central. I don’t know what is attracting them to come to Sunnyside. They are the ones committing theft out of motor vehicles and breaking into businesses because they’re hungry.

“Even the robberies as well, you can’t tell a person not to answer the phone while on the street, maybe it’s an emergency but you can let them know that they need to be aware of their surroundings.

Another thing that we have noticed in all these robberies is 90% of the time it’s iPhones being stolen,” she said.

Honourable Dr Bandile Masuku acknowledged the station’s effort but lamented that a lot more work needed to be done.

“Integrated efforts are one of the major issues that we need to focus on, I see stakeholders are participating and everyone is on board but we need to have more, particularly at the security company level.

There needs to be some control from a district-level point of view.

The dockets are not a new problem. Docket safety was one of the big issues so it’s something we need to engage in to assist the detectives.

“The issue of the public space must also be sorted out as it also affects customer service. Outsourcing of vehicles for repair is clearly not working and the Portfolio Committee (PC) must come up with a solution to shorten the time cars are being repaired,” Masuku said.

Masuku also implored the station to engage more with students on safety while out in the area and use patrollers (Amapanyaza) to monitor the various parks in the area as well.

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