Opposition parties in KwaZulu-Natal are demanding answers from the provincial police leadership amid concerns that the escalation of shootings in the province is due to weak policing.
This is as five people were killed in drive-by shootings in separate incidents on the north and south coasts last week.
IFP KZN community safety spokesperson Blessed Gwala, who pointed out that the bulk of the shootings in the province were as a result of minibus taxi feuds, said it was time for police in the province to admit they do not have the capacity to stop the killings.
These are organized crimes — you need to be organized if you want to deal with these kinds of crimes.
“In the case of KZN police, there is no effective crime intelligence. This is the main reason why police in this province are not able to stop the killings — they only react after the shooting and when people have already been killed,” he said.
Hitment hardly get arrested
The killings, Gwala said, were usually carried out by hitmen “who hardly ever get arrested”.
Last month the activities of hitmen in KwaZulu-Natal came under the international spotlight following the shooting of award-winning rapper, Kiernan Forbes, popularly known as AKA, in Durban’s Florida Road in Morningside.
While police are yet to arrest Forbes’ killers, the police have already concluded that the rapper was “assassinated”.
Lack of crime intelligence concerning
DA KZN provincial community safety spokesperson Sharon Hoosen, who, like Gwala, decried the lack of crime intelligence, said the DA was also “extremely concerned” about the failure of police to make arrests.
Even in those few cases where police have been able to arrest those who are behind the killings, the public is left with unanswered questions. The public is seldom given answers as to why it takes police so long to arrest suspects.
“The DA is convinced that police have not been given sufficient training to deal with these kinds of crimes. We are also concerned that the problem of lack of resources within the police seems to be a never-ending story,” she said.
Officials from the provincial community safety department are scheduled to brief members of the KZN Legislature’s community safety portfolio committee in the course of the week.
KZN crime trends
Hoosen said the DA will use the meeting to seek clarity around a number of issues, including the province’s crime trends.
“As the DA we will also pose questions around the important issue of crime intelligence,” she said.
Build One South Africa (Bosa) leader Mmusi Maimane, who visited KZN last week, said there was a danger that the province will turn into a killing field if urgent steps to end the shootings were not taken.
The murder rate is increasing to a point where drive-by shootings are the order of the day. KZN will soon become the murder capital of South Africa.
“So, we have to make sure that we bring localised policing,” he said.
KZN Community Safety spokesperson Kwanele Ncalane said the department was working with the police and other stakeholders to find a lasting solution to the problem of hitmen.
We are taking these incidents very seriously, and that is why MEC Sipho Hlomuka has instructed the police to urgently and swiftly attend to these cases to make sure that these criminals and hitmen are brought to book.
While Ncalane denied that there was no crime intelligence in the province, he said police will continue beefing up their intelligence capacity.
He cited the recent arrest of five suspected hitmen in Cato Ridge as proof that crime intelligence was being utilized in the fight against the killers.
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