THE Gauteng Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Community Safety has called on both National and Provincial government to urgently address the escalating frustrations of the Community of Diepsloot as results of high levels of criminality in the area.
The Committee has noted that efforts by the Community of Diepsloot through various means of demonstrations and protest actions have not heeded the desired outcomes for the police to decisively intervene and bring an end to the scourge of crime experienced by the residents of Diepsloot.
The Committee is of the view that the concerns and frustrations of the Community of Diepsloot and of Gauteng citizens in general, are genuine and require concerted efforts by both national and provincial Police.
The escalating frustrations of the Diepsloot Community has led to the community taking the law into their own hands through mob justice and brutally killing 7 suspected criminals this past weekend.
This is an act which the Committee strongly condemns as no one has the authority to take away any human being’s Constitutional right to life in a Democratic South Africa, irrespective of what they are being accused of.
The Committee is concerned that the piecemeal interventions provided by police in bringing about permanent solutions to the crime situation in Diepsloot that has now reached unacceptable proportions have not been of great assistance.
The outcry of the Community of Diepsloot for police to intervene seems to be falling on deaf ears with no practical and result driven operations by law enforcement.
The temporary measures being put in place are not long lasting and only serve to curb crime when there is an outcry from the Community.
The Committee is calling for an urgent meeting with the Provincial Commissioner Gen Mawela, MEC Faith Mazibuko and the Diepsloot community leaders to discuss all the interventions that have been introduced earlier in the year 2023 and come up with way forward.
For too long the Community of Diepsloot has been living in a war like environment where in the main, women and children are terrorized on a daily basis and this has to come to an end.
Image (Gatvol Diepsloot community leader, Reverend Thokwane Dithuge says because “we’re black and poorer that’s why Gvt does not take us serious” on crime and murder that has placed the community under siege).
