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Police bosses roasted while gangs go ‘corporate’ and cops lack resources, proper vetting

Police bosses roasted while gangs go ‘corporate’ and cops lack resources, proper vetting
Caryn Dolley
By Caryn Dolley
2 Apr 2025
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Western Cape police chief Thembisile Patekile has told Parliament about the ‘corporatisation’ of gangs. At the same time, it emerged that vetting of officers was not happening seamlessly because of capacity issues in the police service.

Members of Parliament have torn into a police presentation on gangsterism in the Western Cape. They reiterated that officers needed thorough vetting.

This happened during a parliamentary police committee meeting on Wednesday, 2 April 2025, after it became clear that vetting procedures in the South African Police Service (SAPS) were not up to scratch.

National police commissioner Fannie Masemola confirmed during the meeting that capacity issues hampered vetting processes.

‘Chasing our tails’


Certain police officers, including Major-General Feroz Khan, who heads the country’s Counter and Security Intelligence division and whose name has surfaced in internal problems linked to Crime Intelligence, were also waiting for security clearance.

The State Security Agency was dealing with Khan’s clearance to keep it independent of Crime Intelligence.

Read more: Ongoing cocaine Crime Intelligence scandal fuels suspicions of police involvement in global drug trafficking

Masemola also explained that capacity issues meant that vetting in the service did not happen instantly and there could be clearance delays.

“Shortages are everywhere in the police, it’s not only at station level,” Masemola said. “Even this very same section of vetting… has a shortage.” Appointments were being made to deal with shortages.

Wednesday’s meeting in Parliament became heated at times. At one point the EFF’s Leigh-Ann Mathys said that crime would not flourish as much if police, and even politicians, were not involved in it.

“We’re literally just chasing our tails if we don’t clean up the South African Police Service,” she insisted.

Other members of the police committee pointed out that public trust in the service was already low, and it was concerning that some officers were awaiting vetting.

‘Corporatisation of gangs’


Wednesday’s meeting also focused on gangsterism in the Western Cape, South Africa’s mobster capital.

According to the latest SAPS statistics, over three months between October and the end of December 2024, 294 gang murders were recorded in South Africa. 

Of those, 263 were in the Western Cape.

Read more: Cape Town shootings — ‘unimaginable sadness’ as boy, 4, murdered two years after sister killed

The province’s police commissioner Thembisile Patekile gave a presentation on gang violence on Wednesday.

Aside from several statistics, its contents were not entirely new and did not give fresh granular detail about plans and challenges relating to gangs.

This irked members of the police committee, especially as they believed Patekile publicly portrayed police crackdowns on gangs as successful.



A section of his presentation said: “Gangsterism has undergone a process of ‘corporatisation’, with gangsters becoming career criminals, forming part of organised criminal syndicates and establishing a criminal economy.

“Gangs and organised criminal groupings (incl Street Gangs, Prison Gangs and Extortion Gangs ) play a dominant role in the narcotics trade with some having links to transnational groupings.

“Competition over drug trade and expansion of territory is manifesting in gang violence, especially with the recent further corporatisation of certain gangs.”

Taxi violence and  firearms


The presentation also focused on the taxi industry, saying there was a lack of regulation and that there were rivals within the industry.

“Associations and their members fight to control lucrative areas and passengers. 

“This competition can result in violent clashes including shootings, stabbings and other forms of violence.”

Patekile’s presentation listed police successes, including several gang takedown projects, drug confiscations and arrests.



He referred to an interception that happened in the Cape Town suburb of Bellville South, where 27 firearms were seized at a storage facility.

Patekile also flagged “homemade, imitation and now also modified and ‘blank’ firearms” used by gangs. His presentation said that 375 individuals had been arrested, presumably over the past financial year, for crimes including murder, drug dealing, kidnappings for ransom and extortion at construction sites.

There had been 42 convictions.

‘Misleading’ and ‘insufficient’


After Patekile delivered his presentation, MPs hit back.

The DA’s Lisa Schickerling pointed out the figures on those arrested and found guilty equated to a conviction rate of 11%.

She also referred to another section of Patekile’s presentation, which said “34 firearms” had been confiscated between April last year and March this year, a figure which seemed low.

Police committee chair Ian Cameron also weighed in, saying some of the details, including statistics, in the presentation seemed “misleading” and “insufficient.”

“I don’t think it gives us a picture of the real magnitude of gang violence in the Western Cape,” he said.

Read more: Shootings persist, children are being murdered, yet the Anti-Gang Unit is STILL ‘in disrepair’

Cameron recalled that he recently (in February) visited the Western Cape’s Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) base in Faure, between Strand and Stellenbosch.

He said he found that eight of 23 vehicles were operational and that the AGU, since its creation in 2018, had no official staffing structure.

Cameron had also been “horrified” to realise that a police captain, previously investigated over a photograph that surfaced of a suspected gangster posing in an AGU van, was now working in its operations room.



ActionSA’s Dereleen James said it was blatantly clear that the Western Cape’s gangsterism situation was not under control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J04Rbbb84M0

 

She said there was no printer in the firearms office at Cape Town’s Ravensmead police station and detectives had massive caseloads – 537 cases per detective.

(Patekile, in his presentation, acknowledged there was a shortage of about 10% when it came to police service detectives.)

Read more: Police were hung out to dry after President Ramaphosa’s 2018 Anti-Gang Unit launch fanfare

The National Coloured Congress’s Fadiel Adams, meanwhile, had a dire view of the AGU, calling it “a waste of funds”.

He had been present when the unit was launched in Hanover Park in 2018 and said promises had been made that it would be well resourced, but the reality on the ground was very different. DM

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