The recent death by a stray bullet of Chumani Guqaza, an aspiring young footballer from Mfuleni in Western Cape, highlights the harsh realities faced by working-class communities in the province. These communities are plagued by poverty, gang violence and substance abuse, which severely impact the lives and futures of young people.
The legacy of historical forced removals, economic exclusion, and inadequate policing continues to drive this crisis, leading to high levels of violence and insecurity in these communities.
The death of young people such as Guqaza is tragically not isolated, but part of a systemic failure to protect and support vulnerable communities, underscoring the need for urgent and comprehensive interventions to break the cycles of violence and deprivation in the province.
Meanwhile, the governing DA in the province has latched onto Guqaza’s untimely demise – once again blaming the unrelenting violence on the ANC-led national government’s policing and administrative failures, and calling for the devolution of policing power to the province.
The DA contends that local policing control would enable faster and more contextually suitable responses to crime, especially in complex, high-crime areas such as the Cape Flats. The party criticises the national South African Policing Service (SAPS) bureaucracy as slow and inefficient, particularly in forensic testing, investigations and resource allocation, which it says hinders crime combating.
The party also points to widespread dysfunction in the national criminal justice system, highlighting issues such as low conviction rates.
The problems, it argues, undermine policing efforts and weaken community safety. According to the DA, devolving policing powers to provincial authorities would increase accountability, as local politicians and communities could directly hold the police accountable.
The party views local governance as more transparent and responsive compared to the often distant and unresponsive centralised control.
Politically, the DA frames this demand for devolution as essential to protecting communities and promoting social cohesion. It portrays the lack of responsiveness from the national government to the province’s crime crisis as an existential threat, making devolution a necessary structural reform for safety and development.
However, research reveals a contradiction: the DA’s own provincial crime-fighting strategy undermines its call for devolved power. The party allocates significant portions of the budget to the metro police and visible policing, increasing patrols and enforcement, particularly in high-crime areas. The investments have led to tactical crime suppression and greater visible deterrence.
The DA has also invested in technology and infrastructure, such as integrated command centres and crime data analytics, to improve operational efficiency and policing responses.
Despite these efforts, the budget for social crime prevention – addressing root causes such as poverty, unemployment and lack of housing – is limited.
This weakens the long-term impact on community safety, as effective crime prevention requires integration into broader municipal and provincial development plans, which under DA governance often suffer from insufficient funding and poor coordination.
The party’s budgeting choices reflect a strong emphasis on policing and law enforcement as the primary tools for ensuring community safety.
However, without adequate investment in social and economic development programmes tackling the underlying drivers of crime, these efforts have shown limited success in sustainably reducing violent crime and improving safety in disadvantaged communities such as –Mfuleni where Guqaza lived.
It appears the DA views the high crime rates in Western Cape primarily as a policing problem. This narrow perspective overlooks the systemic underdevelopment, social marginalisation, high unemployment, and hopelessness fueling crime.
This failure to appreciate the complex causes undermines – or even invalidates – the argument for devolving policing powers.
That said, South Africa as a whole must explore innovative ways to address inherent weaknesses in the current centralised policing model. While the model enforces uniformity and predictability, it struggles to adapt policing responses adequately to local conditions, especially in high-crime communities with unique security needs.
This mismatch contributes to ineffective crime-fighting, as well as political interference, corruption, weak internal discipline mechanisms, and overemphasis on a militarised force to the detriment of human rights and public trust.
A balanced solution should respect the country’s constitutional mandate for centralised policing while recognising local realities and capacity constraints within SAPS. The goal would be to create a “force multiplier” effect that enhances local impact.
A key step would be establishing a memorandum of understanding between national police, provincial governments and local authorities. This would clearly define roles, jurisdictions and collaboration protocols, ensuring proper oversight.
Furthermore, forming a joint task force combining national, provincial and municipal law enforcement with financial crime investigators (Sars) and prosecutorial bodies (NPA) could target specific threats such as gang networks. Coordinated intelligence – sharing and operations – would enable a holistic approach to crime that respects the centralised framework.
Such an approach could maintain control and accountability within the constitutional framework by regulating devolved powers under the SAPS Act.
The minister of police would retain authority to delegate specific functions to capable municipal authorities via regulation, preserving national oversight and preventing fragmentation.
• Lekota is a veteran journalist
