As the next budget cycle approaches, the City’s Safety and Security Directorate has pencilled in a number of exciting, but critical initiatives to boost its public safety efforts for every ward in the City, including additional resourcing for the Fire and Rescue Service and the Public Emergency Communication Centre.
The Safety and Security Directorate’s budget has prioritised its vehicle, equipment and tech rollout in recent years, with the acquisition of a number of tools to improve situational awareness, gathering of evidence and aerial monitoring and surveillance.
While this rollout is continuing, the focus in the 2025/26 financial year aims to get a number of initiatives off the ground, which would put more boots on the ground, with a budget allocation of at least R94 million.
‘The Safety and Security Directorate has long wanted to expand the gains by the Law Enforcement Advancement Programme (LEAP) to the rest of the city. We have submitted a bold proposal that would see a number of dedicated Metro Police officers deployed to every ward in Cape Town. While the deployment would not match the levels of LEAP, it would still make a meaningful impact and ensure that every community has officers dedicated to their neighbourhood,’ said Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, Alderman JP Smith.
Another critical budget proposal is increased staffing and resources for the Fire and Rescue Services, that will amount to R17,2 million, and an additional R3,6 million to the Public Emergency Communication Centre to increase its capacity.
With more people moving to Cape Town every year and housing areas expanding, vegetation fires within the City’s boundaries increased from 8 462 in the 19/20 financial year to 12 072 in the 23/24 financial year, while structural fires increased from 3 866 to 4 755 over the same period.
‘Much has changed in Cape Town in terms of public safety. There is far greater strain on our emergency services due to increased urbanisation and climate change, but the challenges at the 10111 call centre has also resulted in an increase in calls for assistance to our emergency call centre. Our call centre is the first point of contact with the City in an emergency and it must be able to answer and assist immediately. This Directorate is fairly well equipped, but we need to ensure that our resources keep pace with our growing city and the needs of our residents. And it goes beyond additional staff – those appointees then need uniforms, equipment, vehicles and so forth, as well as additional support or administrative staff and services.
‘We are also pitching for a R5 million investment into additional resourcing for our Events Department. This will help boost the potential economic opportunities from additional events that we are able to add to the annual calendar, but also the ever-growing film industry. These industries make immense contributions to our local economy. Just the top eight events contribute more than R4,5 billion to the economy of the city and the many different industries and jobs that support events,’ added Alderman Smith.
Other items on the list include:
∙ Nearly R21 million for the expansion of a SWAT Specialised Services unit to perform medium to high risk operations targeting gang violence and firearm crime as well as public violence and disorder incidents
∙ R5 million for repairs and maintenance to Directorate facilities
∙ R3 million to pilot a CCTV analytics project that will help make the ever-increasing camera network better and faster at detecting (and responding to) various incident types
