Residents of Inanda in northern Durban say they want the issue of crime in KwaZulu-Natal to top the agenda of the National Dialogue.

Inanda is one of South Africa’s crime hotspots.

The Community Police Forum’s chairperson Mbongeni Phewa says they fully support the dialogue.

“This what they’re trying to do with this National Dialogue, I think it’s going to be one of the fundamental things that might come up with that drastically changes in our country in particular in KZN in Inanda as a whole.

Our area was known as that crime hotspot; it is very high. But at the moment we’re trying to work tirelessly that is why there is a slight difference but we’re adamant that in the future it will go down compared to what it was before.”

Meanwhile, an Eminent Persons Group member Bheki Ntshalintshali says money appears to have significantly motivated some delegates at the two-day National Convention which ended in Pretoria on Saturday.

He says this explains the difficulty in electing a permanent steering committee to take the National Dialogue forward. Delegates disagreed on what consituted a sector, with issues of regionalism and expectations of financial compensation complicating matters.