Collaboration needed to address crime

THE resounding message from the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Safety and Justice Forum meeting on Friday was that collaboration was necessary to address the scourge of crime in eThekwini.

Jabu Nkomo, chair of the Safety and Justice Forum meeting, said the purpose of the gathering with businesses and other stakeholders in the city, was to promote partnerships to focus on problem issues in the city such as crime and grime,which impacted on business.

Speaking at the meeting, Ebrahim Vadachia, chairman of the Urban Improvement Project (UIP) Company, which founded the first UIP in Durban in 2001, said the Durban UIP focused on security and cleaning in the South Beach, North Eastern Business District and Central Business District, an undertaking which was a mammoth task.

He said the UIP strived towards a safer and cleaner city, but added that there was a large drug scourge in Durban.

“The youth are at risk by the proliferation of drugs and we are seeing this by the number of needles washing up on the beachfront. We undertake joint operations with crime intelligence, SAPS and Metro to bust labs. The problem we are dealing with is with the whoonga population living on the railway lines, in culverts and storm water drains. PRASA remove the people from the railway lines, but they run into the city which brings a crime wave which we need to contend with. It is a serious problem,” he said.

He said in 2014 there were around 50 to 60 people living on the railway lines but that these numbers had now mushroomed to around 1500 to 2000. “This shows a social economic problem and a lack of cohesion in city departments. This is a social intervention matter and not a law enforcement issue. People are manufacturing drugs in the storm water drains in the city. The UIP provides a team to clean, in partnership with the Metro Police three times a day in various areas, but a plan is needed from the City to manage addicts,” he said.

Vadachia said UIP security moved vagrants, traders and illegal car guards, which he said, were generators of crime, took drugs, got drunk and harassed residents. He said the UIP was also clamping down on illegal abortion clinics but needed more support from the City and law enforcement in all its endeavours.

The second speaker, Bongumusa Zondo, acting head of department of eThekwini Municipality’s Safer Cities Unit, presented on the Africa Forum for Urban Safety (AFUS) and spoke about crime in the city. He offered an opposing perspective on crime, stating the cause of crime was not poverty, but marganilisation and social exclusion.

“There’s the feeling that if there are more police crime won’t happen, but there needs to be other means to address crime. We need to work with partners to address gender based violence, by building safe and inclusive green public spaces and promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development,” he said.

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He said the 2030 National Development Plan included building safer communities where people living in South Africa feel safe and have no fear of crime. One of the ways to address this was to undertake safety audits in communities, increase community participation in crime prevention and to mobilise the youth for inner city safety to ensure safe spaces for the youth.

“The safety audit and safety lab will be undertaking safety audits with City partners with the objective of strengthening crime data collection and analysis to provide the municipality with tools to undertake evidence based policies for crime and violence prevention and safety and develop monitoring frameworks that address crime actions. We are in the process of engaging stakeholders who can help address the issue of crime currently,” he said.

In response to this, Vadachia said he felt the system was failing and that Safer Cities and local and national government needed to act.

Nkomo said the presentation by Zondo seemed to indicate that the municipality was doing something, however it came down to working together and questioned how businesses could contribute to the efforts of the UIP and safety in the city.

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