You are welcomed to this media conference where we will be discussing crime related issues affecting our province.
The information to be discussed today will among others, assist the department, South African Police Service (SAPS) and other stakeholders to properly plan and to allocate resources to SAPS accordingly in order to fight crime effectively.
We wish to announce that, among all the other crime categories in Mpumalanga, contact crime has increased by two percent. This may look like a small number in terms of percentages; however, the number of actual cases reported at various police stations remains unacceptably very high.
In the 2007/08 financial year, SAPS recorded 45 985 contact crime cases. The subsequent year, 2008/09 the number increased to 46 743. This means that instead of achieving the national target of reducing crime by 7 to 10 percent, crime in the province increased by 758 cases.
The breakdown of crime in the contact crime category include the decrease by eight percent of common robbery, six percent decrease in common assault, eight percent increase in murder, 18% increase of robbery with aggravating circumstances cases, 13% increase of sexual offences and one percent increase of assault with grievous bodily harm cases.
We are concerned regarding robbery at business premises which has alarmingly increased by 168%. It shows that much is still to be done by the department, SAPS in partnership with the business community and the society in general.
It should be noted that the reason this type of crime is so high, is because of the belief that there is money stored in their business establishments. In most rural areas, criminals are of the perception that some foreign nationals do not take their money to banks, hence the increase of robbery in these business premises.
Car hijacking is contributing a lot in the category of robbery with aggravated circumstances. For the 2008/2009 financial year, the province registered a 48% increase. This crime is dominant in areas including KaNyamazane, Kabokweni, Witbank, Culcuta and Siyabuswa.
Delmas remain under spotlight in terms of truck-hijacking is concerned. This area is followed by Grootvlei, Leslie, Bethal and Ogies respectively, hence a 14% increase.
Robbery at residential premises increased by 38% and this indicate that our people are always targeted by criminals. Our highway patrol teams and crime prevention units will be deployed at strategic points across the province in order to fight car hijackers and to ensure that people utilise their vehicles and other property freely.
Many people reach our police stations to report crime when an incident had occurred; however, it becomes a challenge to respond to crime scenes, particularly in areas where there is poor signage, poor roads infrastructure and villages without street names.
We will soon call a meeting with the House of Traditional Leaders and councillors to come up with a plan on how to speed up the process of making sure that streets are accessible and are named for easy access in case of emergency. Stock theft is one crime that affects many people, particularly farm owners, farm dwellers and people living in rural areas. However, in our province, it seems as if the Gert Sibande Region is the most affected.
Areas affected the most include Ermelo, Amersfoort, Dirkiesdorp, Volkrust and Piet Retief. In the five mentioned areas, 1094 stock theft cases were reported. This translates to a lot of money of which the owners of the animals lost to criminals. Other serious crimes that include shop lifting and commercial crimes have also increased by two percent. Property crime has increased by 8% with burglary to business premises increased by 25%.
There has been a decrease of three percent in crimes dependent on police for detection. These crimes include illegal possession of fire arms, drug related crimes and driving under the influence of liquor. Illegal possession of firearms has increased by 12%. This is not good because almost all other crimes are committed by culprits in possession of fire arms.
Drugs play a major role as a generator of crime, and police should do more to detect this type of crime in order to increase the arrest and conviction rate. Working together we will do more in order to ensure that sexual offences are minimised. For the period under review, this crime has increased by 13%. It should be noted that sexual offences now include rape, indecent assault and sodomy.
Crimes such as kidnapping and public violence have increased by 53 and 23% respectively. This is due to the fact that protests related to service delivery gained momentum towards the end of the 2008/09 financial year. As government, we are concerned that we are not meeting the target of reducing crime by 7 to 10%. We still need to pull our sleeves and work hard with the police and the community at large.
In addressing some of these challenges posed by crime in the province, all stakeholders should work together in conducting awareness campaigns and crime operations in order to win the war against crime.
Last week, the department held a Shebeen and Tavern Indaba since it has been established that alcohol abuse contributed highly and is one of the generators of crime, particularly social contact crimes.
We also called young people to a Youth Crime Prevention Summit of which its resolutions will assist the department to draw a crime fighting strategy involving the youth since many people who are involved and also victims of crime fall under the youth category.
The department believes that the new regulation on the registration of sim cards by service providers will assist the police in dealing with crime because it will be easy to trace suspects of crime where cell phones were involved. The roll out of sector policing is at an advance stage in the province and communities need to be involved in order to access police services quicker.
We would like to thank communities for reporting crime and their involvement in fighting crime. The successes recorded by the police would not have been realistic if communities did not have faith in the Mpumalanga police.
Thank you.
Enquiries:
Joseph Mabuza
Cell: 082 678 1450
Sibongile Nkosi
Cell: 082 556 5574
Issued by: Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison, Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Source: Mpumalanga Provincial Government (http://www.mpumalanga.gov.za)
6 October 2009
