Colonel Dawood Laing spearheads CTUB's fight against crime on the Cape Flats
Retired Colonel Dawood Laing will be leading the Cape Town Ulama Board (CTUB) Community Guardianship Desk.
Image: CTUB
Retired police commander Colonel Dawood Laing will lead the Cape Town Ulama Board's Community Guardianship Desk in a new initiative aimed at combating crime on the Cape Flats.
Laing was the previous station commander of Grassy Park SAPS.
The CTUB said this innovative synergy desk represents a strategic bridge between professional law enforcement expertise and the moral authority of religious leadership.
“By combining the technical precision of seasoned retired officers with the guidance of the Ulama, the CTUB is creating a unified front to tackle the persistent scourge of gangsterism, drugs, and violent crime that has plagued the Cape Flats,” the CTUB said.
Laing said systemic corruption starts at the top, and this needs to end.
Stakeholders present at the meeting earlier this week.
Image: CTUB
"Corruption is from the top. And if your top is rotten, the whole body becomes rotten at the end of the day. It is like the sickness of gangrene; it starts very small and spreads to your whole body, and we cannot allow that,” he said.
He also believes in intelligence-driven policing to end the scourge of gang violence.
"You can deploy a thousand policemen tomorrow in Grassy Park; if you do not have any intelligence, you've got nothing. Intelligence is the ultimate key to addressing gang violence."
Mufti Sayed Haroon Al Azhari, President of CTUB, said proactiveness is needed in communities.
“We need to be proactive instead of being reactive. We have to stop those people who are infiltrating our communities, but we need to collaborate, we need to work together and do it,” he said.
This initiative was introduced to attendees at a high-level crime response meeting hosted by the CTUB earlier this week, which convened a broad coalition of stakeholders, including members of Parliament, civic leaders, the South African Police Service (SAPS), municipal law enforcement, and various community safety authorities.
“This meeting was the first of several planned consultative sittings designed to build a comprehensive and united strategy. In the coming weeks, the CTUB will expand these engagements to include direct sessions with the public, Western Cape Safety and Security leadership, and other key roleplayers,” the CTUB said.
The Board said it refused to watch as the streets of the Cape Flats increasingly became battlefields.
It further said it recognised that the SAPS and existing community structures need robust support to effect real change.
“As religious leaders, the CTUB is stepping into this space to assist, provide expertise, and ensure that safety efforts are grounded in both legal reality and moral imperative,” it said.
The Community Guardianship Desk will focus on long-term, sustainable solutions to reclaim communities. By marrying the tactical experience of retired capable officers with the trust and reach of the Ulama, the CTUB said it is establishing a new standard for accountability and safety, ” the Board said.
Get your news on the go, click here to join the Cape Argus News WhatsApp channel.