Cape Town - Khayelitsha Development Forum (KDF) chairperson Ndithini Tyhido and other stakeholders held a meeting with Mayco member for safety and security JP Smith and Minister Bheki Cele on Tuesday evening in their ongoing efforts to fight crime in the area.
The debate, launched by Khayelitsha stakeholders, was among other things called as a means of trying to find common ground between the City, the SAPS and Khayelitsha CPF and neighbourhood watch (NHW) members.
“We called the meeting monitored by (media personality) Prof JJ Tabane involving the three spheres of government being national, provincial and the City so they can stop bickering and equally join forces to support our NHW and CPF,” Tyhido said.
According to Site B CPF chairperson Phindile George, a lot could be achieved when all parties involved supported the ongoing fight against current major challenges involving high incidences of GBV, high rates of hijacking and the need for timeous street lighting maintenance.
Currently, KDF is calling for the City to relook its 2019 project proposal in which it presented a full-blown CCTV control room based in Khayelitsha with qualities of licence-plate recognition.
“In 2019 we presented the City with a full plan of CCTV cameras with the capability of licence plate recognition. The project was approved but not funded because of procurement policies.”
“In communities where there’s CCTV, a camera system, crime is prevented and in Khayelitsha where there are very minimal camera crimes responded to,” Ndithini said.
Based on the meeting, JP Smith said the engagement was a missed opportunity as the focus was more on possible intervention such as NHW and CCTV cameras instead of tackling the fact that SAPS police officers and vehicles in Khayelitsha have not increased in the last five years while the population has increased substantially.
Smith said that currently there were 36 CCTV cameras in Khayelitsha and that being the most in any suburb second only to the Cape Town CBD.
“In Khayelitsha there are 36 CCTV cameras. This is the most cameras in any suburb, second only to the Cape Town CBD where the majority of the cameras were installed by Business Against Crime.
“Of these, 11 are currently not working due to vandalism and the fact that the City’s cameras depend on underground electricity and data connections which do not belong to the City and which have been vandalised beyond the point of repair along the former Prasa rail corridor.
“CCTV cameras have more than doubled since the Khayelitsha commission of inquiry. The City spends R16 million a year on CCTV maintenance – R4 million of this is spent on Khayelitsha alone (25% of the total budget),” said Smith.