Pretoria - Police are aiming to make a significant dent in the country's crime statistics by targeting Gauteng - the province where nearly 50 percent of all reported crimes are committed.
To achieve this, Gauteng police are getting much needed resources in order to increase their visibility and ensure they respond to crime scenes quicker and more effectively.
A major boost to these efforts came in the form of 300 cars, among them BMWs and GTIs, which were handed over to police in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
National Police Commissioner General Bheki Cele said about R250 million has been budgeted for the 1 500 police cars that will be added to the province's existing fleet in 2011.
The cars are destined for police stations and sectors where there are high incidences of crime.
"These cars belong to the South African population, not the police. The cars have been put into your hands to do the work you have to do," Cele told police officers.
He warned them against using the cars for personal use, saying the latest additions needed to be seen on the streets of the province.
Cele said he would not tolerate police using the official vehicles to go shopping or ferry around their family and friends.
Tough action will also be taken against police stations that use the excuse that there were no vehicles available to respond to a crime scene. Even if there was a lack of vehicles, police still needed to do their job, he added.
"If there are no cars you must walk there, you still have your shoes and the shoes you are wearing are state shoes. If there are no cars use a bicycle or a horse to get to the crime scene," Cele said.
He noted that criminals, who hijacked high performance cars which were later used in cash-in-transit heists, often looked on in amusement at police officers who tried to chase after them in cars that were inferior.
"We are saying to criminals you can't laugh at us anymore. We will match you pound for pound."
He also touched on plans to build more police stations in the province. The current 135 police stations did not have the capacity to police a province of approximately 12 million, Cele noted.
The situation was particularly worrying in the provinces' townships which had only 50 police stations. Soweto alone should have at least 25 police stations, he said.
Cele had a stern warning for criminals, saying there was no place for them in South Africa.
"We must squeeze the space of criminals. We must keep squeezing until there is no oxygen. We will make South Africa a place where all law abiding citizens feel at home and criminals feel they don't belong," he said.
