The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has described the Western Cape as a crime scene with coloured and African people the worst affected.
EFF MP Nazier Paulsen was one of the panellists at the Elections 360 live debate at the Langa Civic Hall on the Cape Flats.
Six political parties participated in the town hall debate focusing on crime in the area and the broader Western Cape province.
Paulsen says one of the solutions to addressing crime is to employ 100 000 police officers by 2026.
“Here in the Western Cape, this is a crime scene. And it is a crime scene because blacks, Africans and coloured in particular are excluded from any economic opportunity, economic activity and that leads to high criminality, especially among coloured and African young people. So this Western Cape is not very friendly to young and coloured people,” adds Paulsen.
The GOOD Party says policing alone cannot address the country’s escalating crime.
“So yes, we need better policing and policing needs to be better resourced. We need policing to be more responsive and they need to finish the investigations and hand them over for prosecution. But unless we address the root causes of crime we would never eliminate crime in South Africa. And that means we have to finish the unfinished business of redress and the oppression of apartheid.”
The Patriotic Alliance’s Cheslyn Steenberg says the way in which detectives are deployed is critical to the fight against crime.
“Currently, detectives are overburdened with dockets. Our CBU is understaffed, you probably have one or two members on duty. Our specialised units are not functional. Our laboratories are not functional. But moreover within this particular province, we have law enforcement within the City of Cape Town and Metro police being played up against each other, and promoted. The resource is there to fight crime, yet the DA wants to come and purport that they are working, working for who?”
Meanwhile, Al Jama-ah’s Advocate Shameemah Salie has cited a lack of resources as one of the factors that are hampering the fight against crime.
“If you want to look at crime then you have to look at the reality, our National Prosecuting Authority, our SAPS are not qualified and they are not trained to the capacity and they are not provided with the resources needed, your reality is that when you do your criminal investigation you already failed.”
The video below is the Elections 360 live debate
