Hundreds march in Khayelitsha over crime and bad policing

About 400 people marched to the Lingelethu West Police Station and to the Khayelitsha Magistrates Court on Wednesday, calling for tough action against crime and poor service delivery in their community. Community members mobilised after yet another deadly shooting in Kuyasa on the weekend, where an innocent child was shot in crossfire and died.

The marchers criticised the Khayelitsha Magistrates Court for failing victims of crime in Khayelitsha by granting perpetrators of murders and rape bail or weak sentences. Nomonde Njadu from eNdlovini, said crime is wiping out their community. “People die almost everyday in our area, Ward 29. The perpetrators of those crimes are quickly released from jail. We need answers because that is unsettling and we don’t feel safe. You hear that someone who was supposedly sentenced to 10-years in jail and you find those people roaming our streets,” said Njadu.

Former chairperson of the Khayelitsha Development Forum (KDF), and chairperson of the ANC’s Dullah Omar region, Ndithini Tyhido said the court is known for doing shoddy work. “The work of this court is shocking. The only court with the highest number of bails in the Western Cape is this one. We cannot keep quiet about this, we want answers,” said Tyhido.

“We are happy that the people have come out to stand up against crime and the lack of service delivery. Crime has been a problem for a very long time. Crime in Khayelitsha is caused by the environmental design. The way Khayelitsha is made, the high levels of shacks and the lack of roads in between these shacks and the absence of streetlights to keep our people safe at night is problematic,” Tyhido told Elitsha.

The Khayelitsha community has lost faith in the police and the criminal justice system. Photo: Chris Gilili

In their memorandum of demands, they declare that any part of the criminal justice system that easily allows criminals to get bail or prematurely released from prison is betrayal and failure of the system. “In ward 99 for example we have had many cases of this perceived failure, [w]hereby children are raped, and the perpetrator is arrested and within few days is released without the community taken into confidence as it relates to the conditions of that release,” reads the memorandum.

They also demanded that the justice department strengthen its external community reach and stakeholder engagement. “It’s our contention that there can be no justification enough to settle our unhappiness about the failure of the system, when criminals who roam around our streets show us the middle finger,” they said.

They also lambasted the release of convicted rapist, Luvo Mgijima who raped and stabbed Sisipho Maphasa.

Residents decry poor service delivery

In a memorandum directed to Cape Town mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis, the marchers said they were concerned that a city that proclaims to be working for the people, can allow them to suffer like the residents of Khayelitsha do. “The polarisation of service delivery enables poverty, hunger, and unemployment to get worse. In Khayelitsha sewage and illegal dumping covers the streets. Drains are clogged, and no amount of complaining to the City helps crime, poverty and hunger,” reads their memorandum.

Mandlenkosi Sithonga received and signed the memorandum addressed to the mayor, outside the Khayelitsha Training Centre.

ANC chief whip in the Western Cape provincial legislature, Pat Lekker, criticised the dysfunction of policing outside the Lingelethu SAPS. “The cops don’t write the statements the correct way, hence many of these cases lack the evidence when before court. As Kuyasa and other people from Khayelitsha, we are not satisfied with how things were done in the case concerning Luvo Mgidima and would like the police to probe again,” said Lekker.

“We don’t want to say our police are failing us. We will say maybe, the circumstances they work under, sabotage them. We hope at the end of the day, criminals will get arrested and remain in jail. The police are there to protect us. We hope we will get answers. Because we are not safe anywhere,” she added.