Western Cape Premier Alan Winde threatens legal action over police shortages

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has issued a stark warning that his government will pursue legal action if there is no improvement in policing resources within the province. 

During his State of the Province Address in George on Wednesday, Winde highlighted the potential for a formal "intergovernmental dispute" or court intervention if the ongoing issues of police staffing shortages and inadequate investigations are not addressed.

Winde's remarks come as the SA National Defence Force has been deployed to parts of the Western Cape to support the police in crime hotspots, including gang-affected areas on the Cape Flats.

President Cyril Ramaphosa authorised the military deployment to assist police in stabilising high-violence areas.

“While we are cautiously supportive of the military deployment, it's surely an admission that SAPS leadership is failing to combat crime effectively,” Winde said.

He said police numbers in the province have dropped significantly over the past five years.

“When I came into power as the premier, when I was elected in 2019, we had 20,000 police officers in this province," he said.

"We now have 12,500 active police officers in our province ... that is unacceptable,” he said.

Winde said more than 345 people were murdered in the Western Cape in January alone.

He criticised what he described as a long-term lack of investment in the criminal justice system.

“Over the last 30 years, there has been no real meaningful investment in safety from national government, no new prisons, no new courthouses, no upgrading of the criminal justice system,” he said.

Winde also raised concerns about conviction rates.

“When police do all the work that they do, and they arrest someone, we get less than 5% [of those arrested convicted]," he said.

He described visits to police stations where detectives had limited access to computers, official cell phones and email.

The provincial government has offered to place its own investigators in police stations to assist with building stronger cases, particularly where firearms are removed from gang members by provincial LEAP officers.

“We need to make sure we see this province getting safer, because if we don't see [improvement], then we will have no option but to institute court action.

"We will have no option but to go the full intergovernmental dispute process because it is unacceptable,” Winde said.

Under SA’s Constitution, policing is a national government function, with provinces responsible for oversight and certain support programmes.

The Western Cape government has in recent years invested in complementary safety measures, including LEAP officers and K9 units.

Winde also said the provincial government will partner with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime to establish what he called a “gang observatory” aimed at improving intelligence gathering in gang-affected communities.

Winde said many residents are too afraid to report gang activity directly to police.

“If we want to stop gangsterism and violent crime, then we need to create a safe way for people to provide information,” Winde said.

“We are going to be establishing now something called a gang observatory.

"This will be run by them enabling anonymised spaces for citizens to give us detail of where that drug dealer is, where that gangster is, where those guns are.”

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime already produces the Western Cape Gang Monitor report, which tracks gang dynamics and violence trends in the province.

Winde said the new observatory will allow anonymous reporting and feed information into intelligence systems.

“Let’s try it and let’s see if we can help the intelligence system to actually utilize what everyone seems to know when you walk through the streets of these gang infested areas,” he said.

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