National police commissioner, General Fannie Masemola has conceded that Cape Town is the only place in the country where incidents of kidnappings, are problematic.
Masemola and police management briefed the standing committee on Community Safety, on their plans to deal with this type of crime.
The Mother City has seen a rise in the number of kidnappings for ransom in recent months.
On Friday, Ukrainian woman Anichka Penev was reunited with her family, after she was kidnapped in Blackheath more than a week ago.
Masemola says they’re committed to addressing this type of crime.
“We are applying the same strategies used upcountry and we are now implementing them here, of having integrated teams both national and provincial, as well as all other law enforcement agencies in the province, including the City of Cape Town. We’re approaching it in that fashion with a view to win it, so that the same results we achieved upcountry can be also achieved here”.
Meanwhile, Police Oversight and Community Safety MEC, Reagen Allen says police need to address kidnapping incidents before it starts spilling over into other regions of the Western Cape.
Allen acknowledged measures that are in place to try to tackle the crime in the Metro.
But he’s worried that it will spread to other parts of the province.
“ We are also looking at how are can we expand into our districts, because we wouldn’t want, obviously considering the constraints, but to find mechanisms and ways to ensure that it could be escalated or scaled up to our districts so that the type of crime that’s been highlighted here doesn’t shift to other areas”.
