Western Cape sees minor incidents during shutdown protests

Cape Town - Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has thanked role-players who ensured no chaos erupted on Monday during the nationwide shutdown protests.

According to national police, more than 550 protesters had been arrested by 10pm on Wednesday.

Gauteng recorded the highest number of arrests with 149, followed by 95 in the Northern Cape, while the Eastern Cape recorded 80 and Free State, 64 arrests.

Many municipalities in the Western Cape, including Overstrand, George and the City of Cape Town reported it was business as usual with service delivery not hampered as participants were guarded by police, law-enforcement and traffic cop presence.

The SANDF also closely co-ordinated its operations with other emergency services and community-based structures such as neighbourhood watches.

However, there were attempts to block some major roads and minor sporadic incidents of stone-throwing.

Mayco Member for Safety and Security, JP Smith, said some of the incidents took place in Dunoon, Malibongwe Drive and the N7, as well as Jake’s Gerwel Drive in Mitchells Plain.

Winde said all incidents were dealt with accordingly.

“We all worked together, sharing resources, to ensure our province and citizens were safe. If we are able to successfully co-ordinate our safety and emergency response resources to respond to significant threats and risks like we did, we must and should repeat this generally in our fight against crime.

“I will be engaging with Provincial Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile about how we can take the insights from today and apply in our fight against crime,” said Winde.

Community Safety and Police Oversight MEC Reagen Allen said the integrated law-enforcement had to be deployed due to serious threats.

Cape Times