Police Minister Bheki Cele has allocated more resources to the crime ridden community of Khayelitsha on June 16. Cele was hosted by the Khayelitsha Development Forum on Youth Day where he handed over police vans in response to the high crime level in the township.
At least 26 people have been killed in mass shootings in Khayelitsha so far this year. Cele said the area was notorious for mass killings and invited everyone in the community to play a role in fighting crime.
“The community needs to know that they are central to what we are trying to do, or it won’t work. That’s why today it’s not the police, it’s not the government that has pulled everyone together today, we are pulled together by the community themselves,” said Cele.
“There are things that we know what we are supposed to do…We’re supposed to arrest criminals, we are supposed to put police at the police station, we’re supposed to resource those police stations,” he said.
The minister added that eight of the police stations in the province appear in the top 30 of the “most criminal stations in the country”. Cele said additional 10 million had already been provided to run those eight stations, in addition to the R15 .8 million to deal with issues of gender-based violence.
Cele added that the police vans handed over were meant to “be utilised exactly for what it has been given for and not for shopping, not for parking in homes, but to make sure that they respond and fight crime”.