Watch: Cape Town fights for powers to help put more criminals behind bars

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has declared an intergovernmental dispute with Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia, accusing the national government of delaying efforts to expand the investigative powers of the city’s metro police officers. Hill-Lewis announced the move yesterday (August 3) at the city’s Bishop Lavis Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP) base, saying the dispute followed years of unsuccessful attempts to persuade the national government to grant metro police officers greater crime investigation powers. The city said it formally declared the dispute after several unsuccessful attempts to resolve the matter through discussions.

Hill-Lewis claimed the city had been ‘stonewalled’ over the past five years in its efforts to expand the investigative powers of the metro police. In 2022, the city sent then police minister Bheki Cele a comprehensive motivation and proposals outlining the request, but received no response. He claimed the city had engaged successive police ministers over several years and wrote to Cachalia immediately after he was sworn in last August.

“At the acting minister’s request, we submitted detailed proposals for policing power regulations in addition to those that had already been issued for public comment. This led to several follow-up letters and engagements.” Hill-Lewis said he was hopeful progress was being made and wrote to Cachalia again in February to request an urgent way forward. “The acting minister wrote back in April stating that an SAPS Act amendment would be needed, but failed to include this in the bill [SAPS Amendment Bill] he recently tabled in Parliament.

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This was yet another opportunity squandered, which has now led to us lodging this dispute,” said Hill-Lewis. The dispute, lodged under the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act (13 of 2005), will require both parties to enter mediation in an effort to resolve the matter without going to court. “We refuse to accept that communities must live in daily fear of gang, gun and drug crime.

The time has come to catch and convict, which our metro police stand ready to do in support of SAPS and the NPA,” added Hill-Lewis. He said all available policing resources in Cape Town should be used to their fullest potential, adding that SAPS was under pressure to combat violent crime with limited resources.

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