Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says City policing operations are removing over 400 illegal guns from the streets every year, but a broken criminal justice system secures convictions in just 5% of these cases. The South African Police Service (SAPS) and prosecutors have secured just 81 convictions so far from the 1 670 guns seized by municipal officers from January 2021 – January 2025. To up convictions, the metro is pushing for the devolution of criminal investigative powers for municipal officers to help build prosecution-ready case dockets for gang, gun, and drug crime. Mayor Hill-Lewis unpacked the City’s case-tracking data at a briefing in Hanover Park on 22 May together with Alderman JP Smith, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security.
‘Metro policing operations are succeeding in taking more and more illegal guns off the streets, with our investments to grow policing operations now resulting in over 400 illegal firearms confiscated annually. These efforts should lead to the removal of hundreds of violent criminals and illegal guns from society each year, but a broken criminal justice system has so far secured convictions in just 5% of the 1 670 cases of illegal firearms that our officers have handed to SAPS since 2021.
‘As it stands, municipal officers have the power to arrest and seize firearms, but have not yet been given criminal investigative powers to build case dockets for successful prosecution – powers which the Police Minister can immediately devolve to our well-trained officers by way of regulations under the SAPS Act.
‘City case-tracking data shows that low conviction rates are largely due to the lack of detectives and investigative capacity within SAPS, outstanding ballistics and DNA reports, and slow court and prosecution processes.
‘We have the necessary policing resources which are immediately available to help police and prosecutors dramatically raise conviction rates and remove hundreds of violent criminals from communities suffering due to gang, gun, drug, and extortion-related crime. No Capetonian should live in daily fear of crime in their neighbourhood – this is not normal and will never be acceptable, especially when the resources exist to change this situation for the better. Our goal is to ensure that criminals are behind bars instead of on the streets terrorising the most vulnerable in our society.
‘We are engaging SAPS at all levels of their hierarchy to unlock a more solid partnership on illegal firearm cases, as well as drug, gun and extortion-related cases. Above all, the most important step remains the one required of the National Police Minister: to take the simple action of publishing regulations under the SAPS Act to grant criminal investigative powers to our municipal officers. We will soon submit draft regulations to the Minister for consideration, and have already workshopped these with SAPS and other stakeholders at a regional level. We stand ready to help gain more convictions for the sake of long-suffering communities where the poorest and most vulnerable are hardest hit by violent crime,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.
The City’s research has revealed that of the 1 670 illegal firearms recovered by Safety and Security services from the period January 2021 until January 2025:
∙ 81 cases (4,8%)resulted in a guilty verdict
∙ 126 cases (7,5%) are enrolled and the trial under way, many suffering months or years of delay waiting for ballistics testing
∙ 75 cases (4,5%) await the NPA’s decision to prosecute
∙ 38 cases (2,3%) have warrants of arrest issued, some as far back as 2021, with the accused on the run
∙ 152 cases (9%) have outstanding ballistic or DNA reports
∙ 180 cases (10,8%) were ‘provisionally withdrawn’, meaning the case is not dropped, but that suspects remain out on bail because the NPA and SAPS still need to finalise the criminal docket before it is ready to bring to court.
∙ 826 cases (49,5%) were deemed by the NPA to either have insufficient evidence (320) or no prospects of successful prosecution (506), a stark indication of the lack of detective resources to conclude a comprehensive investigation
∙ 111 cases (6,6%) are either being transferred between stations or deemed to have the incorrect case particulars
∙ 12 persons (1%) cannot be tried as they are deceased, and a further five cases resulted in a not-guilty verdict
Alderman JP Smith said the alarming lack of SAPS resources applied to these cases was evident, with around 70% of cases not proceeding to successful prosecution due to incomplete investigations, outstanding ballistic and DNA reports, or insufficient evidence gathered.
The City has introduced a special training module to ensure all its officers have the necessary statement-writing and docket-building skills, given that SAPS Forensic Crime Scene Investigators are often not immediately available to respond to crime scenes. The City also maintains an open door policy for any SAPS investigating officers who need to follow-up on specific case dockets with City arresting officers.
‘From the City’s firearms confiscations tracking data over the last four years, we see around 1 150 accused persons directly implicated in a firearm confiscation by the City’s police, who should have been removed from our society if found guilty, but who are still in the very same communities, likely continuing with their reign of terror due to the case not being successfully prosecuted. It is important to note that there are killers still walking free even after being caught as far back as 2021, simply because SAPS lacks the capacity to complete the dockets necessary to go to trial and win.
‘We are ready to help with investigations and the completion of dockets to gain more convictions, having already established a Safety and Security Investigations Unit (SSIU) and related information management services. All we need now is the necessary investigative powers to go ahead and build prosecution-ready case dockets together with the SAPS and NPA. All City police are receiving training in docket-building in anticipation of these powers being devolved. We remain hopeful that the recently signed Memorandum of Cooperation with SAPS in our region will lead to a solid partnership in removing violent criminals from our streets. It is vital that, together with SAPS, we now settle the implementation protocol to give life to this cooperation agreement,’ said Alderman Smith.
The City continues to invest in growing its policing resources, including:
∙ Over 1 200 officers deployed to major crime hotspots via the LEAP initiative in partnership with the Western Cape Government
∙ Further growth of over 1 100 uniformed officers since 2021, including the upcoming deployment of 700 more officers to provide dedicated neighbourhood policing capacity in each ward and to escort service delivery teams in unsafe areas
∙ A major R800m safety technology investment for smarter policing, including drones, dashcams, gunshot detection, aerial surveillance, CCTV, dashcams, bodycams, automated number-plate recognition, and the digital system to coordinate it all, known as EPIC.
City seeking urgent solutions
Once City officers have confiscated a firearm and handed it to SAPS, it is important that SAPS provide ongoing status updates on the prosecution. This includes assurance on the safe-keeping of illegal guns removed from the streets by our officers.
As it stands, the City does not have access to shared data from SAPS on the current status of cases and the location of confiscated firearms. This is despite numerous engagements with SAPS, and despite the Memorandum of Cooperation signed in 2024 between the City, SAPS, National Police Minister and Western Cape Government.
A high-level meeting with provincial SAPS top brass on 17 March 2025 led to a SAPS invitation for District Commanders to work more closely with the City to provide status updates on firearms cases. These engagements are ongoing.
The City has further submitted a PAIA application seeking to gain more granular insight into the reasons for stagnation in specific cases.
