Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi plans to enlist technology to help in the fight against crime in the province.“Our province is a home of heartless and merciless criminals,” he said in yesterday’s State of the Province Address. “They do as they wish.
“So the issue of fighting crime should be our apex priority. We should unleash all our resources at our disposal to tackle crime. To this end, we are increasing our budget of fighting crime from R750-million to multi-billion in the next three years.”
Among the interventions envisaged is the connection of suburbs, townships, business districts, schools and other public places with high-tech, face- and car-recognition CCTVs. Lesufi aims to arm residents with e-Panic buttons that will be linked to law enforcement agencies, CCTVs and a new Integrated Command Centre.
The province aims to acquire new helicopters and will also procure 180 drones to increase surveillance on areas that are hard to patrol or police. “These drones are equipped with technology that can capture the direction of a bullet and where they come from,” Lesufi adds.
These measures are planned to support 6 000 new security personnel.
“In order to strengthen our fight against crime, we need to revamp our legislation in three crucial areas,” Lesufi adds. These are the registration of vehicles, the elimination of illegal guns and a move away from cash for business transacitons.
“The current number plates system is running out of the numeric and letters,” he points out. “We want to take advantage of this situation to introduce new, hard to copy and tamper-proof number plates.”
These will be complemented by a new database of vehicles in the region so there will be a common verification platform.To counter the scourge of illegal guns, Lesufi says the province will first equip police firearms with tracking devices, and then roll tech out to all gun owners.