Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has expressed outrage at the murder rate in the province but says a local policing approach is proving to make a difference.

Winde was responding to the release of the latest quarterly Crime Statistics by acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia earlier Friday, which shows an overall 9.1 percent increase in murders across the province.

The premier has pointed to some successes achieved by the City of Cape Town, saying cooperative and locally managed policing programs are reducing murder rates.

“If we look at our LEAP program, the City Advancement of Law Enforcement Program, where we deploy to six areas in the Cape Flats, we can see a reduction in murder of 9.4 percent as opposed to an increase of 9.1 percent of murder across all other regions in our province. We don’t need any more evidence than that that these kind of programs work, that is why we put the safety plan in place.”

Meanwhile, Cachalia says in the past two quarters, there has been a significant decline in most crime categories.

He says murder has started to decrease significantly followed by the reduction of aggravated robbery, compared to last year.

“However, there are categories that remain stubbornly high. Sexual offences and GBV, as mentioned, remain of critical concern. Commercial crime, we continue to record increases here, a trend spanning five years. Much of this, is now taking place online.”

Cachalia adds, “With the support of the joint initiative against crime and corruption (JICC) as part of the partnership with the private sector, we will be strengthening our digital capacity to fight this.”

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