The Western Cape‘s crime-fighting efforts received a boost when 250 law-enforcement officers were recruited for the province’s most dangerous neighbourhoods.
On Monday, community safety MEC Albert Fritz
said the new Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP) officers would be ready
for deployment in some of the crime hotspots in the Cape Flats by mid-December,
in time for the festive season.
In the next few weeks, LEAP officers will
receive training in how to use a handgun, a tonfa (baton) and pepper spray, how
to stop and approach people, as well as radio procedures.
The new intake brings the number of Leap
officers in the Western Cape to 1,081. The unit has 110 Leap commanders, who
have already been deployed.
Fritz said the new officers would increase
visible policing in the identified crime hotspots in Cape Town. The officers
are being deployed as part of the Western Cape safety plan which was launched
late in 2019, when the province and Cape Town were dealing with a murder
epidemic.
News of the training for new LEAP officers
comes on the back of calls from MEC Fritz for greater policing responsibility
to be devolved to provinces. At present, policing policy is centralized in the
National Minister of Police, with provinces limited to playing oversight.
“The Western Cape Government wants more
policing responsibility, so that we can make policy that speaks to the needs of
our province, and support the Western Cape SAPS to a far greater extent than we
are currently doing. The Constitution makes provision for greater involvement
by the provinces, beyond just an oversight role. We can’t afford to be mere
spectators ticking boxes. Our citizens need us to be more involved!”
“the current centralized approach to policing
is not working, as evidenced by the SAPS’s owns statistics; and as the
Provincial Government, we want to get more involved. We received no resource
allocation for LEAP, but we’ve nevertheless managed to train and deploy more
than 1000 officers. We have laid the foundation with our Provincial Safety
Plan, and we are ready to take it to the next level now. Why stop us? Our
citizens need us to realise that the fight against crime is one fight that
cannot be superseded by a ANC versus DA contestation. Our citizens need us to
work together on this,” Fritz added.
Done By: Mitchum George
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