Cape Town — Five new police stations will be ready to open their doors in Cape Town over the next two years – one in the near future
Construction work at one of the police stations – in Makhaza near Khayelitsha – is all but complete while the site for the new police station in Tafelsig is being cleared, reports the South African Government News Agency.
The Makhaza station, however, has been a long time in coming; residents have been waiting at least a decade for a permanent police station. The Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into Policing recommended as far back 2013 that a permanent police station be built there.
Three more new stations – at Brown’s Farm, Samora Machel and the Cape Flats – are expected to be completed by 2026.
On a walkabout tour of the construction sites in Makhaza and Tafelsig on Tuesday, Police Minister Beki Cele said the two new stations in Tafelsig and Makhaza would “bolster policing and increase the footprint of the police in communities grappling with violent crime and gangsterism in Cape Town”
Cele said the fast work – it had taken only six months – on the Makhaza station was “commendable and encourages us to do more to ensure policing services are not a nice-to-have but are accessible to all”.
“We have been assured by contractors that the outstanding electricity and water connections on the site will be completed within the coming weeks, and the station can fully operate and service the community,” he was quoted as saying by News24.
The Ministry said the Tafelsig station was back on track after it was delayed to accommodate community demands for involvement in the construction project.
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