Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela has called for South Africans to stop renting out their back rooms to undocumented illegal foreigners in South African townships.
Mawela briefed the community safety committee on crime on some of the interventions made to curb crime in Diepsloot.
Mawela also briefly gave an update on the festive season safety campaign during a briefing at the Gauteng Legislature on Tuesday.
This comes a week after seven young men were set alight by members of the community Diepsloot.
There have been reports that crime has increased in the area with most parts of the overcrowded township said to be crime hot spots.
He said South Africans need to take responsibility when it comes to leasing their properties to undocumented foreigners as this made their stay in the country legitimate.
“When foreigners appear in court, the majority of them pay their fines and return back to the community. In a way, by taking those people through the court process, you are legitimising their status in the country,” Mawela said.
He added that immigrants have found many loopholes that they are exploiting to make their stay in the country legitimate.
“Another loophole that undocumented migrants exploit is that once you have appeared before court, you can say ‘actually, my lord, I am here for asylum purposes’. You are then being given an opportunity to go and apply for asylum status. You are then legit in the country.
“This is something that requires the lawmakers to correct. We as police have done our part,” he said.
Johannesburg district commissioner Max Masha, who gave an update and report to members of the legislature, indicated that in spite of interventions to curb crime in the area, there were many challenges that prevented them from making progress.
He said lack of municipal services, unemployment, poverty, and inaccessible roads and infrastructure were some of the biggest challenges faced by the police in their endeavour to resolve crime in the area.
“The interventions which we have put in Diepsloot (have led to the arrest of) a total of 2 620 undocumented persons. And those people, when they appear before court, majority of them pay their fines and go back to the community,” Masha said.
It was reported that Diepsloot has one of the biggest number of illegal taverns and spaza shops, with Masha indicating that some of the biggest crime issues in the area are assault GBH, violent crimes and hijackings.
To deal with crime, Masha said 10 interventions have been made to ensure increased police visibility through blue light patrols, rapid response vehicles at identified strategic routes, as well as roadblocks according to the developed weekly operation matrix.
“We have increased ground coverage by deploying additional intelligence collectors at hot spot areas to enhance community intelligence collection capabilities, working with community patrollers and Community Policing Forums and as well as according to Mawela, the crime committed the most in Diepsloot is assault GBH, where people assault each other with weapons. In most of these cases, the perpetrators know each other,’’ he said.
Other interventions cited include increased ground coverage by deploying additional intelligence collectors at hot spot areas to enhance community intelligence collection capabilities, working with community patrollers and Community Policing Forums and ensuring a multidisciplinary team that will also focus on all serious and violent crimes such as robbery, CIT robberies and ATM bombings.
The Star
siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za