Uncertainty around what's become of Operation Lockdown on the Cape Flats

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Cape Town - It is not yet clear if the much-vaunted Operation Lockdown - a crime-fighting co-operation between the police, army and other law enforcement agencies - had wrapped its operations in the Cape Flats since Tuesday. Premier Alan Winde said he had not received any written communication from President Cyril Ramaphosa or ministers that the army deployed to fight crime in the province had been withdrawn. Operation Lockdown was initiated in July last year as a response to the plea for intervention from communities regarding serious and violent crimes plaguing the Cape Flats and other townships in the Cape Town metropole. The force included units of the police, metro police, traffic officials and the SANDF. The operation began its second phase on September 16 last year after President Cyril Ramaphosa made an announcement on the extension of its stay until March 31. “The army deployment in the province was only ever meant to be a short-term solution and, as a province, we have been working on our Safety Plan interventions knowing that they would eventually leave,” Winde said.

He said the focus before Covid-19 was on moving towards normalisation and “that was still our main aim once the necessary lockdown period came to an end”.

Good party secretary-general Brett Herron said the current lockdown and the deployment of the military presumably merged the operations of crime prevention and curfew enforcement.

“A temporary merging of the security and patrolling makes sense. There is no obvious need for two concurrent and duplicated operations. However, the situation will have to be assessed before the lockdown ends and then need to redeploy the army for crime prevention and suppression of gang activity will have to be on the table if there is a risk to the safety of vulnerable communities,” Herron said.

Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz said the priority of each sphere of government now must be to stop of the spread of Covid-19 and ensuring that residents stay at home, and continue their hygiene practices and self-isolate.

“While the deployment has yielded positive results in stabilising many communities in the Western Cape, I welcome the further deployment in the Western Cape throughout the lockdown period,” Fritz said.

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