By Alec Hogg
It’s rational to be sceptical about Friday’s photo-op in Hanover Park where SA president Cyril Ramaphosa, flanked by SA Police Services top brass, re-instated the Western Cape’s Anti-Gang unit. For reasons known only to the rotters who used to run the country, the highly specialised unit was disbanded in 2012.
Removing this law enforcing deterrent opened up what Western Cape Premier Helen Zille describes as “drug floodgates”. Zille reckons that as a result, 36% of SA’s drug-related crime and 83% of its gang-related murders today occur in the DA-governed province. For context, 11.5% of the country’s population live in the Western Cape.
Other data supports her contention of central government neglect. Nationally, SA has one police officer for every 369 people. In police-starved Western Cape, it is one-for-509 while DA-run Cape Town gets just one officer for 560 people. And this for a city whose murder rate is treble Johannesburg’s and highest of any outside South America.
So what has changed the ANC’s collective mind? Just over a month ago, hugely influential global magazine The Economist ran a lengthy feature on Cape Town gangsterism and how it has boosted the murder rate. Whereas predecessor Jacob Zuma could care less, investment-seeking Ramaphosa pays heed to global opinion. Thank goodness.
