The beaches around Cape Town were the main focus of the City of Cape Town’s law enforcement unit during the past festive season.
This is according to one official speaking at the Subcouncil 3 meeting held on Thursday last week in Milnerton, where councillors raised concerns about the unit’s budget cuts and how it impacted their operations.
Anthony Benadie, Ward 4 councillor, thanked the unit for their work during the festive season, but said he observed that while they conducted their festive season operations, members packed up at 17:00. Benadie wanted to know if they can do more operations overtime, indicating that the Subcouncil 3 budget allows for this.
Law enforcement officer Janine Williams from the City’s safety and security directorate said the unit covers a broad area, stretching from Melkbosstrand, Bothasig and Brooklyn to Richwood. “The overtime budget has been cut, but during the festive season our members did work late, mostly at beaches. Our attention was mostly on beaches for the drownings and drinking in public,” said Williams.
One of the incidents recorded over the festive season is a fatal drowning at Lagoon Beach.
Williams indicated that the overtime budget for safety and security had fallen away, but that they do have ward allocations which will allow their staff to perform night duties.
“We know over the festive season the vagrants had taken over.” Operations which focus on vagrancy have already started in Table View and Parklands, and the unit is currently shifting its attention to Summer Greens.
“One of our biggest challenges is solid waste. They have a lot of C3 requests, but they do not have a lot of trucks. It is not law enforcement’s responsibility to clean up. We have requested the Displaced Persons Unit (DPU) to step in and to assist with clean ups each week.
“Each week we have an operation, and integrated operations. Each week we also have a clean-up operation.
“We have a lot of planning for 2024 with the ward allocation that is available to us.”
