From the news desk

Grassy Park residents called to meeting to tackle crime

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Increased crime activity and lack of police service delivery has sparked safety concerns among the community members of Grassy Park. In an effort to resolve this problem, the police have setup an Imbizo where the community of Grassy Park will have an opportunity to address their concerns.

Philip Bam, the public relations officer for Grassy Park Community Police Forum (CPF) confirmed that the majority of drug related arrests take place in the central area of Grassy Park which is an economic hub.

“In order to keep these levels of drug activity going, the drug user has to find the money to pay for this, by breaking into people’s motor vehicles and homes and selling the goods,” said Bam.

He said this type of activity cannot be sustained and hopes that the path for improvement can be paved through this Imbizo.

Bam also acknowledged that there has been an influx of complaints regarding the lack of service delivery from the police and that neighbourhood watch groups have to sometimes play an active role in achieving justice through taking alleged criminals to the police station themselves.

“There are pockets of improvements in certain areas where the focus is mainly on drugs and guns,” he added.

However this slight improvement doesn’t assist elderly community members who have spent their lives establishing homes just to have their homes vandalized and household goods stolen by criminals.

This will be the second Imbizo aimed at curbing the crime issue in Grassy Park. Bam stated that it was noted at the previous Imbizo that community attendance is an issue and that households need to be adequately represented in future. He also stressed that this is an important opportunity for the community to directly address their concerns with the police, plot out the course of action being taken and for the community to pitch in ideas on how to make the area and its citizens safe.

The meeting will be attended by the Grassy park SAPS and other branches of the police, including the chief of the investigation branch, which will provide community members an opportunity to be able to follow up on personal cases.

“I’d like to appeal to listeners to come to the meeting and share your concerns, and [to] judge and assess whether what the police is saying they are going to do is actually done in practice.”

The meeting will take place on Thursday 28th July at 19h30pm at Sid G Rule primary, 7th Avenue in Grassy Park. VOC (Abegail Nxele)


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