MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

Kidnapped businessman and young girl return home

By

Dear Editor

Today is a day of relief as both 74-year-old Ebrahim Moosa, who was abducted yesterday, and the young girl who was abducted last week Tuesday, are now safely home. We share in the joy of their families and communities who have endured unimaginable fear and uncertainty following their abductions.

I commend the dedicated work of the SAPS in safely recovering Mr Moosa and arresting three of the criminals responsible for his brazen kidnapping yesterday. Their swift action has thwarted this kidnapping. However, it is unlikely to impact the continued operations of these organised syndicates in the province.

While today brings good news, we must not forget that neither Mr Moosa, this young child, nor any other victim of abduction should ever have had to endure this trauma in the first place.

The fact that kidnappings are happening so brazenly in our communities shows that organised crime syndicates still feel emboldened—and that is because crime intelligence in the Eastern Cape remains dangerously under-resourced.

How many more families will be forced to suffer because SAPS in the Eastern Cape is being hung out to dry because our government does not take crime intelligence seriously?

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will not allow SAPS to be set up for failure. Officers on the ground are doing their best, but they need the proper tools, including crime intelligence, to prevent these crimes, not just respond to them after the fact.

It cannot be that law-abiding citizens are forced to live in fear. I will be writing to DA MP and Chair of the National Portfolio Committee on Police, Ian Cameron, to request that the issue of resources for crime intelligence for the Eastern Cape be placed on the portfolio committee’s agenda for discussion.

We are also demanding urgent intervention from Premier Oscar Mabuyane, who has repeatedly ignored the worsening crime crisis in this province by failing to allocate any resources to crime-fighting technology.

To this end, I will be tabling a motion in the Eastern Cape Legislature in the coming weeks to call for resources to be made available to support SAPS, such as immediate investment in surveillance and reconnaissance technologies. These tools have been effective in the Western Cape, where crime prevention and offender apprehension have been dramatically enhanced, and we expect the same measures to be implemented here.

Our communities have lost trust in the ability of law enforcement to protect them from these syndicates, and the Nelson Mandela Bay District Commissioner, Major General Vuyisile Ncatha, has committed to meeting with them. I will facilitate engagements between our communities and the District Commissioner, as we have done in the past.

Today’s success proves that SAPS can win the fight against these criminal syndicates when given the right resources. The government must now step up and ensure law enforcement is adequately equipped to prevent future tragedies.

The time for inaction is over. Crime intelligence must be prioritised before more lives are put at risk.

Regards

Yusuf Cassim MPL
DA Shadow MEC for Community Safety

The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.