The secretary general of the Alexandra Community Policing Forum (CPF) Floyd Makhathini believes that since their leadership election on September 10, they have hit the ground running in their effort to combat crime in the township.
Makhathini, who was speaking in an interview with Alex News, said they have organised community crime awareness marches, one of which was in partnership with ANCYL and targeted drug lords and peddlers in the township, including the end users of the drugs who were mainly the youth.
“We haven’t been in the [leadership] positions for long but we have made our presence felt and this is how things are going to be. Whatever the zonal leadership [ANC Zone 13] is saying is purely lies as we have established block committees all over Alex and also activated the community patrolling system as part of the programmes to combat the spiralling crime.
“We recently assisted the police to nab some of the most notorious gang members that were terrorising the community and all this has been achieved in a space of a little more than a month of taking the reins,” Makhathini added.
He said he felt discouraged and disappointed by the comments of the ANC Zone 13 chair but that his executive would seek an audience with the zonal leadership to iron out the matters and see how the CPF could work closely with them and share ideas and programmes to combat crime.
ALSO READ: New Zone 13 chairperson Kenneth Mgaga chastises the Alex CPF leadership
Newly elected ANC Zone 23 chair Kenneth Mgaga had berated the leadership of the Community Policing Forum describing it as ‘infested with leaders that have no interest in serving the community but their nefarious interests’. “This must come to an end. We want people with selfless interests who are more than willing to serve the community. What we have now are a bunch of money-mongering activists masquerading as community messiahs,” alleged Mgaga.
Makhathini also took the opportunity to appeal to the community not to take the law into their own hands but to report all criminal activity to the police and CPF. He was reacting to a recent incident in which a 19-year-old boy allegedly shot and killed a man that he accused of abusing his mother.
“Yes, this is quite a traumatic experience to witness the abuse of your mother but it does not justify the act of committing a crime in the process. The boy should have reported the matter of abuse to either the police or CPF and the matter would have been dealt with.
“We have a programme called ‘pimpa umakhelwane’ [report the neighbour] for any criminal activity and if the neighbours had acted on the abuse and reported it to the police, I am sure the boy would have been spared from taking the law into his own hands as he is alleged to have done.”
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