By OBAKENG MAJE
18 December 2024- The North West MEC for Community Safety and Transport Management, Wessels Morweng said he is disturbed by the pattern of some of 85 police stations in North West, consistently appearing in the the Top 30 reporting crimes in the country. However, Morweng said, he is pleased to note a significant 4.3% drop of sexual offences, but it was equally depressing to note an incredible 20.3% increase of murder cases.
He further said from July to September 2024 reporting period, the picture has improved slightly due to intensive and incessant work by the police. Morweng added that even with that, it is worrying that there are still areas where crime remains unacceptably high as indicated in the percentage reduction of the 17 community reported crimes, which only decreased by a mere 3.3%.
“Contact crimes which generally are a challenge were reduced by 1.7% and this is due to the nominal increases of some crimes, such as murder which increased by 4.2%, attempted murder by 8.2% and common robbery by 5.7%.
“The reason why there appears to be an exponential increase in multiple murder, is due to the fact that each case has a separate docket and is treated as one. For the reporting period of July to September 2024, there had been 13 incidents of multiple murders recorded,” said Morweng.
He said in one incident, 8 people were killed and in another, 5 people were murdered and 3 in the other incident. Morweng said the other 10 incidents had two people murdered in each.
“In total, 31 people were killed in these 13 multiple murder incidents. It is worth noting that sexual offences were reduced by 3.5% and this is despite the challenges that are associated with the prevention of this crime.
“Sexual offence incidents often occur in private residences or where the victims and perpetrators are in some kind of a relationship or are known to each other,” he said.
Morweng said for the period under review, reported rape cases were reduced by 2.9%. He said out of the 539 reported cases 270, which is 50% of the cases, occurred at residences, either of the victim or the perpetrator.
“In an attempt to address these types of crime, multidisciplinary social crime prevention programmes have been initiated, which include encouraging victims of Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBV&F) to speak up.
“Crimes against women and children remains the priority of the police as part of the government GBVF implementation plan. For this reporting period, fewer incidents of murder of children were recorded while incidents of murder of women remain comparatively high,” said Morweng.
He said this is a further testament of the moral deprivation that permeates the family values and social fabric. Morweg said this unfortunately is against the objectives of the National Development Plan (NDP), which emphasizes that all people including women and children are equal and free like everybody else to live their lives unimpeded.
“Police alone will not be able to address this phenomenon but we need to restore our family values which focuses on respecting people irrespective of religious, gender or any other differences between us as human beings.
“Impressively stock theft has decreased by 6.1% though there are some areas where this crime is still stubbornly high. Taung and Pudimoe, both in Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District, remain the province’s problematic areas with both stations ranked number 7 and 23 respectively in the country,” he said.
Morweng said they have recorded a remarkable 16.4% of crimes detected and prevented as a result of police action. He said the target for police detection of illegal possession of firearms and ammunition was however not met.
“This remains a challenge especially because many of the reported serious and violent crimes such as robbery aggravated and murder are committed with firearms.
“It is important for police intelligence and the community including community policing forums to work together to reduce the prevalence of illegal firearms,” said Morweng.
He said there are a variety of factors that contribute to the high levels of crime. Morweng said these factors which require a multi-disciplinary approach, include proliferation of illegal firearms and dangerous weapons.
“The other socio-economic factor is the expansion of informal settlements with spatial development by municipalities.
“The other problem which exacerbates informal settlement is the influx of undocumented persons. For instance, the North West does not share borders with Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Lesotho,” he said.
Morweng said, but curiously, some arrested suspects of the murder, damage to infrastructure, illegal mining and stock theft are by undocumented nationals from these countries.
The Guardian 