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Cape Town’s fight is with criminals, not politicians – devolving some policing is the right thing to do

Geordin Hill-Lewis
By Geordin Hill-Lewis
18 Oct 2022
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In our call for the devolution of certain policing powers, the City of Cape Town is seeking more powers for the municipal police staff that we already have, rather than seeking to assume any control over the SAPS directly.

In a recent Daily Maverick article, “Push for devolution of Western Cape policing powers may have pragmatic footing but no legal standing” (29 September 2022), Professor Pierre de Vos says there are “both principled and practical reasons to justify the devolution of police powers” to provinces and municipalities.

He notes that there are “significant legal and political obstacles to any devolution of police powers”, the latter “for as long as the ANC governs at a national level”, but that “political dynamics around this issue might change” in the event of a new governing coalition nationally come 2024.

In Cape Town we believe there is not only a constitutional case, but a human case, to devolve these powers immediately. I have assured both the ministers of police and justice, and President Ramaphosa that our fight is with criminals, not politicians.

Residents should not have to live in daily fear of violent crime, and children should feel safe to play outside. That is the Cape Town we are striving towards, where there is freedom of movement for residents and a chance at a better life.

It is on this basis that I have been engaging the ministers of police and justice about more policing powers for our municipal law enforcement officers.

More policing powers


I need to make it clear that in our call for the devolution of certain policing powers, the City is seeking more powers for the municipal police staff that we already have, rather than seeking to assume any control over the SAPS directly.

There is a good case for the provincial government to assume a degree of control over the SAPS directly, with enhanced abilities to shape policy and accountability. I know our colleagues in the province are pursuing this and I support them fully.  

Our case is different. As a well-resourced, functional metro, Cape Town already has municipal law enforcement, Metro Police and traffic officers on the ground who are immediately available to do more in helping the SAPS to fight crime.

Our officers are already succeeding in taking many guns and drugs off the streets. More policing powers would enable them to compile prosecution-ready case dockets for presentation to the SAPS and prosecutors, especially on key crime categories such as guns, drugs, gangs and metal theft.

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The SAPS sorely needs this assistance given that 71% of Western Cape police stations have seen a decline in police personnel in the past five financial years.

There has been a net withdrawal of more than 500 SAPS officers in our region since 2018, and even a recent additional SAPS deployment was 821 officers fewer than was budgeted for.

Given the underresourcing of the SAPS, our officers are increasingly the first responders to reports of crime in the metro. They are also well-trained, well-equipped and motivated to do more in helping the SAPS keep communities safe.  

City safety investments


The City has already deployed more than 1,200 law enforcement officers in areas impacted by high crime rates under the Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP), together with the Western Cape Government.

As of 31 July 2022, LEAP officers had made 8,500 arrests since their first deployment in February 2020, and taken more than 220 guns off the streets. Including the efforts of Metro Police and the Traffic Service, the City has removed close to 400 firearms in total off the streets in the past year. With these achievements, our officers are already helping the SAPS reduce murders and other violent crimes.

The City is investing in a further 230 new Law Enforcement and Metro Police officers in this financial year alone, and hundreds of millions in crime-fighting technology, with a record R5.4-billion safety budget in 2022/23.

Increased investment has seen our officers more than triple their arrest rate in recent years, with 50% of these arrests being drug-related. 

We are also able to deploy technology and safety investments that the SAPS cannot.

Daily policing operations are increasingly enhanced with various camera-based technologies, including CCTV, now supported by manned aircraft systems, drones, automatic number-plate recognition, gunshot location tech, dash cams in vehicles, and body-worn cameras. This network will constantly feed data back to our operational command via our cutting-edge “EPIC” software system.

In the coming months we will convert the current Transport Management Centre in Goodwood into a Joint Services Operations Centre from where our entire crime-fighting apparatus will be run.

In short, the City has a lot to offer the SAPS and the national government as a partner in making Cape Town safer.

Legal basis for devolution


There is a continuum of devolution options and the City is advocating to start with what is already in the justice minister’s power to implement – the immediate extension of peace officer powers under the Criminal Procedure Act.

The justice minister has already used this mechanism, in 2018, to extend the powers of municipal law enforcement beyond just local by-law enforcement, enabling them to play a more active crime prevention role for certain crime categories.



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From there, devolution can be furthered by an amendment to the SAPS Act, particularly to broaden the scope of the Metro Police beyond crime prevention to include investigative powers.

Currently, the City is only able to establish prima facie evidence of criminal activity within our scope – especially gun, drug and metal-theft-related crime. Evidence gathered by the City is handed to the SAPS to take further to prosecution.

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However, the exclusion from the mandate to investigate crime limits our Metro Police officers from fully supporting the evidence-gathering and prosecutions process to ensure convictions. 

It is clear that the Constitution is enabling of devolution given that Section 99 allows for the assignment of functions by ministers to provincial and municipal spheres.

Bringing policy closer to communities


When it comes to the determination of policy for the SAPS, we are simply asking that the City be able to formally determine city-specific policing needs and priorities in the form of a subsidiary policing plan to be adopted as part of the national policing plan of the future.

Policing policy devolution is constitutionally envisaged, with s206(2) stating that national policing policy “may make provision for different policies in respect of different provinces”. Provincial governments may also be assigned subsidiary policy-making power under s206(4) (B) and (C).

However, since 1996 the minister has never issued a policy statement that sets out the different policing priorities or programmes for the different provinces. This is despite the fact that crime patterns differ, requiring varying strategies – in our region particularly for firearms, drugs and gang crime.

Nothing that is on the table conflicts with the constitutional provision of a single police service, nor any explicitly designated authority of the national minister.

We have an enabling Constitution for devolving critical state functions closer to communities in a way that makes us all stronger. We do not need, nor do we want, to secede to achieve better outcomes for Cape Town’s communities.

Whether in the current national political dynamic, or a new one after the 2024 election, the City of Cape Town will not abandon the cause of residents living in fear of crime while there are constitutional and immediate ways to devolve more policing power to make communities safer. DM

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