Cape Town - Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has sent a formal request to Police Minister Bheki Cele to give the City’s police officers full crime-fighting powers, including the ability to investigate crime.
Hill-Lewis made the announcement during his Council speech on Thursday, saying they want the City to run its own fully-fledged policing service.
He said a recent study found that 48% of SAPS detectives in the Western Cape have a case load of over 200 dockets per officer.
“This is 333% above the norm. This problem is compounded by the current shortage of more than 500 SAPS detectives in the province,” Hill-Lewis said.
“Fortunately, there is a practical, realistic, and workable solution. I can announce that I have sent a formal request to Minister Cele to give the City’s police officers full crime-fighting powers, including the ability to investigate crime,” he said.
Hill-Lewis said Cape Town Metro Police and Law Enforcement Officers did an incredible job, but they do not yet have all the powers envisaged in the Constitution to win the war against crime.
“Specifically, our officers are limited to crime prevention in the main, with limited scope for criminal investigations. While we already use that existing scope to the full, and we are fully confident in our power to do so, we also want to do so much more.
“By going beyond crime prevention, we could be doing so much more to help SAPS build prosecution-ready case dockets. Instead, our officers have to rely on an overwhelmed and under-resourced SAPS that, frankly, does not have the capacity to investigate crime properly,” Hill-Lewis said.
He added that Cele had previously said that he cannot devolve power in the absence of a constitutional amendment.
“This is nonsense. Section 99 of the Constitution provides that ‘a Cabinet member may assign any power or function…to a Municipal Council’.
“Accordingly, I have written to the Minister to request that he uses his constitutionally-enshrined power to give us the policing powers we need.
“In this City, we have taken the decision that we will not be held hostage by the failings (of the) national Police Minister. If Mr Cele will not fulfil his democratic mandate to make the people of Cape Town safer, then we certainly will,” he said.
Cape Times