Crime addressed at stakeholders meeting

Stakeholders in Zandspruit held their second council meeting of the year on January 26 at Emthonjeni Community Centre. Picking up from the previous meeting, Ward 114 councillor Tebogo Mangena said an education desk would be set up to assist the community with any challenges in that regard.

The main topic at this meeting was crime, more specifically crime in Zandspruit. Warrant Officer Leshabo Ramalatso said another big issue in the community is gender-based violence. “Between a Friday and a Sunday we could have six or seven reports of rape. In about 8% of those cases the perpetrator is someone the victim knows. Sometimes a man who shares children with a woman would force himself on her during one of his visits.”

Ramalatso said a challenge they face with these cases is that almost every Monday there is a long queue of the same people, ready to close a case they have just opened. Among the reasons this happens is that the victim is being pressured by elders in the family; intimidation; or even the victim being paid off by the perpetrator.

Many of the issues community members raised were about the police’s slow reaction to emergency calls, if they respond at all. Lydia Ndlovu from Hope Worldwide said, “When you call Honeydew Police Station about a crime, they tell us they don’t have vans. Two people died at our gate last week, and when we called them they said they didn’t have any vans. We had to call Cosmo City Police. On other occasions, they said we should go to them!” Ndlovu said trading hours needed to be set for local taverns as they often operate until the early hours of the morning.

For many of the residents and community leaders, there is a level of distrust between them and crime-fighting authorities. They feel that they cannot rely on the police because of past incidents where they did not respond. “What should we do as a community?” Maxwell Zikhali asked. “When we take matters into our own hands, we get arrested. Should we just sit back and watch people get robbed or murdered?”

Mangena said the issue of crime needed to be addressed by having sit-downs between the police in Honeydew and the community of Zandspruit.