The Delmas Police Station is ranked the second highest station with the most kidnapping cases in the country.
The police minister, General Bheki Cele, made the official announcement of the national crime statistics last Tuesday, May 30.
A closer look into the national crime statistics for the fourth quarter revealed that 53 cases of kidnapping were reported to the Delmas SAPS, making it number one in the province.
Delmas’s kidnapping rates had remained the same from the fourth quarter of 2022. This was a spike from 2021’s 22 cases.
Other alarming kidnapping rates were recorded from various police stations in the province. Pienaar recorded 19 cases, Witbank 17 and KwaMhlanga 10.
Overall, the province recorded 254 cases. The country recorded 3 641. This was an incline of at least 10.1% from 2022.
Some of the crimes in Mpumalanga include 828 cases of sexual offences, with 712 of those being cases of rape, 339 cases of murder, 6 351 cases of property-related crimes, 1 322 cases of drugs-related crimes and 1 158 trio crimes (car jackings, house robberies and business robberies).
KaBokweni and Pienaar were in the national top 30, at number 24 and 25 respectively, for rape cases. Both the stations had 40 each.
Stations with high murder cases were KwaMhlanga with 22 and Vosman with 21.
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The Nelspruit, Witbank and Middelburg police stations made it to the national top 30 for property-related crimes. However, they showed a decline from 2022. Nelspruit was placed at number 15 with 428 cases (a decline by 15.9%), Witbank sat at number 16 with 417 cases (a decline by 9.2%) and Middelburg was at position 21 with 389 cases (a decline by 7.6%).
The Vosman SAPS was number 28 on the national top 30 for its 36 cases of carjackings reported. Witbank followed with 35 cases and Delmas had 31.
The police stations in eMalahleni ranked the highest in drug-related cases. Witbank recorded 142 and Vosman 103.
Cele said his ministerial office yet again called on all government structures to engage on approaches to fight crime.
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“Without community participation, the police will never win the war against crime. We call on community partnerships. R70m of the SAPS’s budget this financial year will go to all provinces to support CPFs in terms of their resource requirements. This funding will mean CPF members are not short of protective clothing, torches, communication material and other tools of the trade to enable them to be fit for purpose.”
Cele said he hoped this funding progamme will not be abused, but go a long way to support community structures against crime.
