Johan Kikillus, Ocean View Care Centre
I was informed on Friday October 11 that Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz held a community meeting on Thursday night October 10 in Ocean View.
It is unfortunate that it was so poorly advertised as there are many questions that we wished to have asked.
For the past month, there has been almost constant shooting in the area around the Ocean View Care Centre and several senseless murders.
From my office window, I can see cameras that were installed by council several months ago. Do these cameras in fact work? Are they connected to a control room that has access to rapid-response law enforcement? How much is this system costing the taxpayer?
Also, considering that there are several City-run facilities in the immediate area, namely the clinic, library, rent office and civic hall, I wish to enquire why there are no law enforcement officers stationed here to protect the elderly and children that often have to run into our centre when the shooting starts.
In the past nine years that we have been based here, we have not seen any attempt by government to make this public area more secure.
Lastly I wish to enquire from the community police forum what its strategy is to assist the public in the midst of this gang violence.
In 2012 I asked the mayor and premier at the time for a strategy meeting between Province, City and civil society. That never happened.
Maybe now Mr Plato and Mr Winde can assist us before more innocent lives are
taken.
* JP Smith, Mayoral committee member for safety and security, responds: The City of Cape Town is continuously working to increase its CCTV footprint.
All the cameras are working and the entire camera system costs approximately
R900 000.
CCTV has proven very useful as a tool in the fight against crime, unrest and also detecting by-law offences. However, it alone will not drive down crime rates. What we need is more police officers on the ground, better resourced police stations, more effective investigations and even more importantly, more prosecutions.
* Kathy Cronje, Ocean View Community Police Forum (CPF) chairperson, responds: The CPF is placing constant pressure on partners in safety and security, and because of that pressure, the Ocean View police station is one of the most resourceful stations in the cluster.
In 2018, the CPF and Department of Community Safety wrote a sector safety plan and we are pressurising the involved parties to implement all aspects of the plan.
