Rise Mzansi conducts oversight visit to Bramley and Alexandra's police stations

Senior members of the party conducted an oversight on Thursday.

The visit comes in the wake of crime statistics released by the South African Police Service in August which revealed that, like many police stations countrywide, these two stations are under resourced, and officers are overburdened.

The party’s caucus whip Gana Makashule said there is a high number of unfilled vacancies leading to a slowdown in solving cases.

He added community members have complained about police taking a long time to arrive at reported crime scenes and concerns around the high level of extortion in Alexandra, with gang leaders allegedly demanding money from residents and businesses for protection.

“We spoke to the leadership of the police station and the chairperson of the CPF in Alex, and they got the number of cases that were withdrawn, but also the prevalence of these extortion gangs that are demanding that each household must pay a minimum of R20 a month so that they get protection,” Gana said.

“An issue that was also raised in Alexandra is that there are a lot of cases that are being withdrawn by complainants. Complainants will come to report a crime, but when they get the case number, they use the case number to extort money from the perpetrator and withdraw the case thereafter and that is something that reverses efforts to fight gender-based violence cases.” he said.

ALSO READ