Vandalized CCTV cameras cost City over R50m - nearly double its budget

The City of Cape Town’s Metro Police head claims the budget for fixing CCTV cameras in crime-hotspots ballooned from R9.8 to R50 million due to an increase in vandalism.

Metro chief Wayne le Roux responded to questions in the Western Cape Legislature on Wednesday after briefing the standing committee on community safety on the City’s policing plan for the year 2021/2022 financial year.

Le Roux highlighted that the City has a dedicated Camera Response Unit, whose operations are directed by what is detected by CCTV cameras across the metro.

He said plans were underway to expand the CCTV network over the next five years which currently covers the CBD, Athltone, Manenberg, Bonteheuwel, Khayelitsha, Mowbray, Rondebosch, Claremont, Vanguard Drive and Gugulethu.

In September the City said there were 835 cameras in the 2020/21 financial year, up from the previous period’s 783 cameras.

The ANC’s Melusi Kama questioned the City on how it monitors whether cameras were operational.

Several communities have complained over the years about non-operational cameras in their areas and therefore unable to assist in the fight against crime.

In his response, Le Roux said while feedback was received on a daily basis there were challenges around vandalism of the cameras.

“Khayelitsha has 16 cameras on and 20 were off. Khayelitsha and Philippi are our biggest challenges where we have vandalism , fibre is constantly broken, we are looking at a process of making sure these cameras could be on council properties to prevent opportunities for vandalism,” he said.

Le Roux said plans were underway to ensure cameras operate smoothly to avoid a situation where they are not working at all.

“Our operating costs for getting the cameras up and running, just for the 2020/2021 financial year, we had R9.8m set aside for the event where cameras are damaged but we spent R50m just for cameras damaged. This clearly shows the challenge around people seeing an opportunity for copper and that breaks the camera footprint,” he said.

“The amount of funds that goes to fixing and sometimes replacing these cameras, sometimes they are not only damaged but are set alight and we wouldn’t want them to be a disadvantage for the community.

“We have cameras across, we monitor them and have response teams to deal with these but vandalism is a challenge. There is a CCTV roll-out plan for the 2021-2026, (this is) a five year plan that talks about where we can do it, how we can do it and the interaction with stakeholders, whether station commissioners at various police stations. Kraaifontein and Nyanga are also on the list where we interact with them to ask them what are their challenges to use our resources optimally.”