The Western Cape Community Policing Forum has 350 members ready in Mitchells Plain to help LeadSA’s anti-drug initiative.
|||Cape Town - The Western Cape Community Policing Forum (CPF) has 350 members ready in Mitchells Plain to help LeadSA’s anti-drug initiative, Drug Watch.
The programme was started just before the December holidays by LeadSA - in association with the Cape Argus, 567 CapeTalk and law enforcement agencies - to help curb the drug problem in the province.
During the three months that the programme has been operational, drugs worth R10.5 million were confiscated and 15 919 people were arrested on drug-related charges in the Western Cape.
For the next three months, the initiative will focus on Mitchells Plain, which police say is the “drug capital of the province”. Western Cape CPF chairman Hanif Loonat said he had met neighbourhood watch members from the area. “Mitchells Plain is one of our strongest zones and we are ready to help,” he said.
Loonat said members would mobilise other residents to report drug activity, do daily patrols and run awareness-raising programmes at schools.
“We will invite prominent sports stars to come and speak to the kids about the dangers of drugs,” he said.
Although all kinds of drugs are sold in Mitchells Plain, cheaper drugs like tik and dagga, are the most common.
Loonat said they were also looking to help the police to bring down Mitchells Plain’s drug kingpins.
“Police have been arresting the foot soldiers of the trade but we need to go for the kingpins, who come and mess up our communities but live in leafy suburbs. It is no use taking off the leaves while the roots are going strong.”
He said syndicates run by foreigners from Russia and Germany controlled the drug trade in Mitchells Plain, and residents needed to speak out so that arrests could be made.
Tip-offs can be sent anonymously to Crime Line at 32211.
neo.maditla@inl.co.za
Cape Argus