Cachalia’s Admission Equals Surrender to Gang Rule

Statement by Lisa Schickerling MP – DA Spokesperson on Police:

The Democratic Alliance (DA) condemns Police Minister Firoz Cachalia’s shocking admission that SAPS is “not equipped” to defeat gang violence and extortion in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape.

South Africans must now ask the obvious question: is the Police Minister and SAPS willing to stand by while gangs terrorise communities, murder innocent residents and children, and deliberately recruit and exploit young people to do their dirty work? Because that is exactly what this admission amounts to: a surrender of the state’s constitutional duty to protect its people.

While the Minister speaks of “capacity gaps”, communities are burying loved ones, children are being caught in crossfire, businesses are being extorted into closure, and entire neighbourhoods are living under gangster rule.

The DA rejects the Minister’s narrative of helplessness. Successive ANC Police Ministers have had years to prepare, plan and properly resource the fight against organised crime. Instead, we see underfunded specialised units, poor intelligence capacity, weak prosecution outcomes and a reactive approach that allows criminal syndicates to flourish.

The Minister’s admission once again strengthens the case for the devolution of policing powers to capable provinces, such as the Western Cape, which has repeatedly demonstrated both the political will and administrative capacity to confront violent crime where national government has failed.

Despite not having policing powers, the Western Cape Government has spent more than R3 billion of its own budget on safety interventions to fight crime and gangsterism, including the deployment of LEAP officers, effectively filling the vacuum left by SAPS’ ongoing failures.

Parliament itself has acknowledged the severity of the gang crisis, with an ad hoc committee established through the Portfolio Committee on Police to investigate gang violence, yet this recognition has still not translated into decisive national action or improved policing outcomes on the ground.

The DA therefore demands immediate action, including:

• A dramatic expansion and permanent resourcing of the Anti-Gang Unit, not symbolic deployments and temporary operations;
• Dedicated national extortion task teams with real investigative capacity and prosecutorial support;
• A shift to intelligence-driven operations that dismantle gang leadership and financial networks, instead of endlessly arresting foot soldiers;
• Proper protection for witnesses and whistleblowers, without which prosecutions will continue to fail; and
• Emergency inter-provincial coordination structures to disrupt organised crime operating across provincial borders.

Furthermore, the Minister must explain why, despite confirming in meetings last year that SAPS was developing a comprehensive anti-gang strategy, communities are still waiting for meaningful implementation. Where is this strategy? What is the timeline? And why has it not delivered results?

The DA will not accept excuses while South Africans live under siege. If the Minister cannot equip SAPS to defeat gangs, then government must explain why it continues to fail the very people it is sworn to protect.

Criminals are organised. Communities are desperate. Only the state remains absent.