Staff Reporter
There has been an increase of over 70 percent in kidnappings in the Free State over the past year with most of the cases ending with incidents of sexual assault, Police, Roads and Transport MEC Sam Mashinini said.
In his budget vote speech delivered on Friday in Welkom, Mashinini said although the province has recorded a marked drop in other forms of crimes, kidnappings associated with sexual offences had increased.
“Kidnappings in the province have . . . shown an alarming increase of 78.3 percent or 184 cases,” he said.
“The majority of kidnappings in the province are associated with sexual offences.”
Mashinini said sexual offences which include rape, sexual assault, attempted sexual offences and contact sexual offences increased by 8.4 percent.
He said in a bid to intensify the fight against gender-based violence and femicide, police stations in the province were being equipped with victim-friendly rooms where complainants can be assisted in a private and dignified space.
The MEC said there are now functional victim-friendly rooms at 85 police stations in the province and that plans are in place to equip the remaining 26 facilities.
He said, where these centres are not available, the complainants are referred to other centres in order to ensure they are protected.
“The increase in (these) types of crime is a constant reminder that the fight against crime is far from over and demands us to double our efforts,” said Mashinini.
Commercial crimes in the Free State also went up by 2.2 percent or 93 cases.
Carjacking went up by 2.1 percent in the province and cash-in-transit robberies shot up by 50 percent from eight cases in 2018/2019 to 12 cases in 2019/2020.
Truck hijackings also increased by 12.8 percent.
There was a decrease of 2.2 percent in contact crimes.
Murder dropped by 6.1 percent; attempted murder decreased by 12.8 percent; and assault (GBH) was down by 2.1 percent or 233 cases.
Common assault dropped by 2.9 percent; common robbery fell by five percent; and robbery with aggravated circumstances went down by 4.1 percent.
Trio crimes which include carjacking, robbery at residential premises and robbery at non-residential premises also dropped by 9.8 percent, while contact-related crimes which include arson and malicious damage to property decreased with 6.1 percent.
The MEC also announced that work on several roads that have been damaged by the recent heavy rains will commence soon.
“. . . our citizens can be assured that the already mentioned projects and initiatives are precisely meant to, inter-alia, address concerns raised in phone calls and letters directed to my office about the bad state of certain roads, which include, but not limited to, the Vrede-Memel-Botha’s Pass (R34) and Ficksburg-Fouriesburg-Bethlehem (R26) roads,” he said.
Farmers, taxi operators and other businesspeople around Ficksburg recently staged a protest to register their disquiet on the state of the roads in that area.
Over the coming year, new rehabilitation projects valued at R186 million will be implemented on roads such as:
- Jacobsdal – Modderrivier P8/2 (Phase 1)
- Luckhoff – Havenga Bridge (Phase 1)
- Tweespruit – Hobhouse (Phase 1)
- Tweespruit Access Route (Phase 1)
- Zastron Access (Phase 2)
- Bloemhof – Hoopstad (Phase 2)
- SEZ Mahabane Route (Harrismith)
The total budget allocated to the Department of Police, Roads and Transport for the 2021/22 financial year is R2.882 billion.