The promises that the Gauteng Premier, Panyaza Lesufi, suddenly started making to Eldorado Park residents about better policing are no more than empty words, and misleading.
Not once during the nearly 30 years that the ANC has been in power in Gauteng were enough resources deployed in Eldorado Park to combat crime effectively.
During his term as MEC for Education, Lesufi also demonstrated that he has no regard for the people of Eldorado Park.
He did not give schools the support they needed and he even appointed non-Afrikaans principals at Afrikaans schools, which sparked protests.
It is hard to believe that he will now suddenly start doing something positive for the people of Eldorado Park.
According to the police’s crime figures for the quarter from January to March 2022, the Eldorado police station is in the fourteenth position of police stations in Gauteng with the highest incidence of contact crime.
It is also fifteenth as regards the number of transit heists, and ninth with regard to murder, with a 30% increase from the previous quarter.
The FF Plus sympathises with residents who expressed their serious concern about the sharp increase in crime in the area by camping out in front of the police station in September this year.
They demanded that government must take drastic steps to curb the rise in crime.
Lesufi’s promise to earmark R2,4 billion to appoint 6 000 people to patrol the streets is just another way to create jobs.
The money would be put to better use if the current police station is equipped with the resources it needs to fight crime more effectively.
Lesufi will surely incur the Eldorado Park community’s wrath with his promises of helicopters, drones and closed-circuit television monitoring, which will not realise.
This political opportunism will cost the ANC dearly.
Gauteng deserves better than the ANC.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by Kobus Hoffman on FF Plus
