When soldiers patrol our streets — an admission of police failure

The deployment of soldiers into crime-affected communities, as announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa during the State of the Nation Address, is not a long-term solution to the crime plaguing the Western Cape. While the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) may provide temporary stabilisation, its deployment amounts to an admission that the police are failing to fulfil their constitutional mandate.

This reality was underscored a few weeks ago when the acting minister of police conceded that the South African Police Service (SAPS) was not capable of defeating deadly criminal gangs and organised crime in the Western Cape. After 32 years of democracy, this is a damning admission. In light of the Madlanga Commission, however, perhaps nothing should surprise us about how deeply the rot has seeped into the criminal justice system.

We currently have an acting minister of police because the actual minister is suspended and on special leave, having been implicated in serious allegations of interference in criminal investigations.

Section 205 of the Constitution is clear: the SAPS is responsible for preventing, combating and investigating crime; maintaining public order; and protecting residents. No other state body carries this criminal investigative mandate — and that is the critical point.

The technical plan for the military deployment, still being drafted, must include robust provincial oversight. Sending soldiers to stabilise communities in the face of an under-resourced and ineffective SAPS raises serious questions:

• Why is the SAPS unable to secure and maintain control over gang-affected areas?
• Why are crime intelligence structures failing to dismantle organised networks?
• Why do firearm and gang-related murder cases collapse or fail to result in convictions?
• Why are communities left dependent on cyclical military interventions rather than sustained, permanent policing capacity?

More importantly, what is the long-term plan to clean up the SAPS and restore its ability to fulfil its mandate? Does such a plan exist, or is this simply more of the same?

Systemic weaknesses

Soldiers can patrol streets and staff roadblocks. They may temporarily stabilise gang-ridden areas, allowing residents to go about their daily lives in relative peace. What they cannot do is conduct detective work, build dockets, cultivate community trust, or secure convictions in court. While the army’s presence may create short-term visibility and calm, it does not address the systemic weaknesses within SAPS that allow gang violence and gun crime to persist.

If soldiers must stabilise crime levels in our communities, it reflects a failure of national leadership and long-term strategy within SAPS.

The deployments are not new. The SANDF assisted the SAPS during the xenophobic violence in 2008 and 2012, as well as in Operation Fiela in 2015 and Operation Prosper in 2019. While the initial arrival of troops was sometimes welcomed, the long-term impact on gang violence has been minimal. Criminal activity often resurfaces once the troops withdraw, as the underlying structural problems remain unresolved.

Communities in the Western Cape deserve:

• Properly resourced local police stations;
• Functional crime intelligence;
• Skilled detectives;
• Effective prosecution of gun crime; and
• Sustainable, community-based safety partnerships.

What they do not deserve is a cycle of crisis deployment followed by withdrawal, with little structural reform in between. They deserve a professional, accountable and effective police service capable of delivering real change on the ground.

Coordinated effort

Addressing this crisis requires coordinated effort across all three arms of the state and all spheres of government. There is, however, another option that the President, the acting minister of police and SAPS management continue to ignore: expanding policing powers for certain investigations, including gun crime, to capable provincial and local governments such as the Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town.

This approach could help catalyse meaningful police reform, strengthen investigations into gun crime and gang activity, remove dangerous individuals from the streets, enhance public safety, and improve the province’s unacceptably low conviction rate.

In short, expanding policing powers to the province would assist the SAPS in meeting its constitutional mandate under Section 205. The continued refusal to consider this option amounts to a dereliction of duty to the people of the Western Cape and a failure to uphold the SAPS mandate.

The acting minister of police must explain why the SAPS is unable to perform the duties assigned to it by the Constitution — and why he refuses to pursue this practical and necessary route to reform that could restore both confidence and capability within the service. DM

Benedicta van Minnen is DA Western Cape spokesperson on police oversight and community safety.