The City of Tshwane has room for growth and development and can learn from the DA-led council in Cape Town, says the mother city’s MMC for public safety, JP Smith.
Smith visited the capital city, where he met the DA’s Tshwane mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink to share a road map of suggestions in a bid to re-establish Tshwane’s service to a level of functionality.
“I am noting some defects in the city, which start with the resources,” Smith said.
Cape Town MMC advised Tshwane’ mayoral candidate’s Brink on metro policing
Tshwane has only 4 000 metro police officers and would have been the biggest service two years ago.
“But Cape Town has more than 6 000, which doesn’t count the reservists or rent a cop,” Smith said.
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“Last year we were able to report 4 500 arrests made by metro police because it was more intelligence-driven and partnerships with society, especially the neighbourhood watches.”
Smith said Cape Town was the only city in the country with a police reserve service run by the metro.
He also joined DA mayoral candidate for the City of Joburg, Helen Zille, last week to conduct an audit on the state of the city’s firefighting service, which was found stripped of resources.
Visit with Zille last week
“Joburg now has a quarter of the resources that Cape Town has. They had half the resources we had in 2006 and we have doubled from 2006. They are now left with a quarter of the resources, which will require a lot of money to rebuild,” he added.
Smith said they had a lot of broken vehicles between 2000 and 2009 which took a lot of money to fix.
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“That’s why I told Cilliers, while he didn’t fix all the problems while he was mayor, I’m sorry, but these things take a long time to fix. When you break a thing to a certain level, it is not that easy to rebuild in a single-year budget; that’s a tall order,” he added.
Smith said the city has shown some growth, from 400 law enforcement officers and 300 metro police and fewer than 800 staff in 2006 to 2 400 law enforcement, 1 298 metro police and 1 373 traffic officers currently.
City of Tshwane mayor Nasiphi Moya said they were working hard to turn the city around.
Mayor working hard to turn city around
Last week, she joined the city’s bad buildings subcommittee during a law enforcement operation in Pretoria West, where they arrested several undocumented foreign nationals linked to illegal activities – in an operation with the department of home affairs.
Moya said in further operations in Centurion and Mamelodi, another 64 undocumented immigrants were nabbed.
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“We plan to intensify our efforts throughout the festive season,” she said.
Moya also recently joined MMC for environment and agriculture Obakeng Ramabodu, who led the Andries Tatane Cleaning Campaign initiative in Mamelodi to promote the beautification and revival of public spaces in the city.
“Our plan is to expand the campaign to all parts of Tshwane, especially our townships, including Mabopane, Soshanguve, GaRankuwa and Olievenhoutbosch. We urge residents to help keep our public spaces clean,” he said.
Targeted road safety operations
MMC for community safety Hannes Coetzee said at the end of the last month, in a single weekend, a series of targeted road safety operations across the city, the Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) made 110 arrests; of these, 63 motorists were apprehended for driving under the influence of alcohol and 47 pedestrians were arrested for illegally walking along the N1 and N4 highways.
Pedestrian activity on the highways was strictly prohibited due to the risk posed to both the pedestrians and motorists.
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“As we approach the festive season, the TMPD will intensify its visibility and enforcement to deter lawlessness and protect our residents,” he said.
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