Cape Town - As crime encroaches on normally tranquil rural communities, the community policing forum in one small town has taken the initiative to install CCTV cameras themselves.
Concerned about the influx of people seeking work and the rising criminal activities in Citrusdal, the CPF decided to gather its resources to prevent crime.
Chairperson Riaan Carstens and other stakeholders launched the pilot project on Friday.
He said: “We have several donors from town and we have business owners who liked the idea.
“The idea is to establish a camera network across the valley that includes the licence plate recognition (LPR) cameras to check all the cars that come to our town.
“We also have cameras for the township, the new informal settlements, there are many issues there like lack of services and overpopulation, uncontrolled building and socio-economic issues and all of them lead to crime and there may be a problem with policing and it makes sense that we assist the law enforcement there and we have installed an overview camera.”
He said they used the two types of cameras, the LPR for the roads, and the people movement one, the overview.
“We monitor the public areas and also when there’s a fire we are able to alert the authorities.
“Since the project was piloted on Friday we have managed to report illegal activities such as informal trading of alcohol.
“We have a lot of illegal taxi operations and it puts our local taxis under pressure and we have seen the police and traffic mitigating that.
“The cameras will now help us identify the illegal taxis and will check the number plates.”
Carstens said there have been great improvements in crime fighting.
“Under the leadership of our colonel and the traffic services we have managed to impound 81 cars, in about a year, we hope to do more.
“The last time we had a murder was in 2021, it was a double murder, but apart from murder incidents we have a lot of drug-related crimes, illegal liquor trading and a lot of illegal immigrants, some people come here for work and they never leave.
“That puts pressure on the police and law enforcement because they were never ready to have more people coming into town. It’s hard to say how many people come into town but I’ve heard it’s about 20 000 in harvest season. The camera is just one side of things to support our local government for security.”
The CPF said they are not off the hook yet as they still need more money to run the cameras.
“Partners involved are Citrusdal CPF, Vancor Security, HG Security, Morne Van Zyl (Slap Snoek), they make sure that the cameras are always running, it is a fish and chips shop but they have done a lot for us. The Cederberg Municipality has also supported us with this project.
“We are dependent on donations to fund this project, it takes R62 000 to fund this per month and when we calculated the capital it’s more than R1 million and we welcome funds from everyone just to keep our small town safe.
“Any enquiries regarding this project can be directed to the CPF Executive at [email protected].”
Cederberg municipality mayor Ruben Richards said he was aware of the initiative.
“I know about the camera project as I wear two hats, I am also a farmer and we were told about the pilot on Friday.”