POLOKWANE – City Mayor John Mpe has expressed discontentment at the state of broken surveillance cameras around the city, adding that such vandalism waters down efforts to improve Polokwane.
The cameras, placed mostly around the inner CBD have been stripped of processing units and other parts.
The areas mostly targeted are at the corner of Market and Grobler Streets, along Landdros Maré and Grobler Streets as well as Excelsior and Market Streets near the Indian Centre taxi rank.
The continued theft keeps by-law enforcers from doing their work efficiently, but a solution is in the pipeline, he said.
“We will soon announce a major change on city surveillance which will allow us to see almost everything, even stolen vehicles.”
In 2022, the city’s policing forum pointed to vagrants as perpetrators of cable theft and the vandalism of traffic lights as they live from hand to mouth and are often drug users, according to one forum member. “They break state infrastructure and sell it to scrap yards, for a small fee.”
The group pleaded with provincial and local government to absorb more homeless people in rehabilitation centres and reunite them with their families.
In April last year, safety representatives from all local municipalities of the Capricorn district reported that there were not enough state-owned rehabilitation centres and that infrastructure repurposing was necessary to facilitate the increasing number of drug addicts, who they said contribute to crimes in the city.
Social Development’s media liaison officer Joshua Kwapa said the Seshego Treatment Centre next to the Seshego Hospital was available with a 62% occupancy in October last year. “The centre currently has 34 patients admitted and has an occupation capacity of 54 people.”
MEC Nandi Ndalane made a plea to those struggling with substance abuse to consider admitting to the centre, that is well resourced, to help with rehabilitation. The service is free of charge.
