Pretoria - Gauteng Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela has said hijackings, kidnappings and murders top the list of serious offences committed in all districts of the province, including Tshwane, Joburg and Ekurhuleni metros.
General Mawela was presenting the Gauteng crime statistics for the financial year which ended on March 31, to the provincial legislature sitting at the Randfontein Municipal building today.
He said hijacking of trucks and passenger vehicles had increased in Gauteng compared to the same period last year.
“Our analysis reveals that vehicles are hijacked in Gauteng for the following reasons: Uber taxis are taken for transport purposes and abandoned by those who do not have means for transport late at night.
“Old cars are taken for selling spare parts or to rebuild other cars while luxury cars are taken for further use in the commission of other crimes such as cash-in-transit (CIT) robberies, house and business robberies while others are used for illegal exports.
“Trucks and delivery vans are hijacked solemnly to steal their valuable cargo,” Mawela said.
He said some of these hijackings resulted in kidnappings of the drivers and/or passengers, at other times a hijacking may also lead to rape and murder.
Mawela also said kidnappings were continuing to rise in this province across all districts.
“The causative factors remain the same, they happen during hijackings as during the commission of this crime victims are taken with, deprived of freedom of movement and dropped off at other places later.
“During the three months under review we have seen an increase with 1 563 cases reported as compared to the same period in 2020/2021 where there were only 524 cases reported,” Mawela said.
He said the sample size of 1 404 the top three causative factors for kidnappings are hijacking related (784), robbery related (221) and retaliation or revenge related (90).
Mawela said Gauteng has recorded a 45.2% increase in murders which amounts to 1 403 people killed during this period, saying that was 437 more people murdered as compared to the same period in 2020/2021.
“The analysis of murder cases has shown again that the majority of causative factors are arguments, misunderstandings (not domestic related), road rage and provocation.
“During this period, we lost five police officers. One was killed while on-duty and four were murdered while off-duty,” he said.
Mawela also said that sexual offences have increased by 11.3%, saying the overall number of sexual offences was 2 921 while rape accounts for 2 267 out of this number.
He said property related crimes increased by 0.2% and in that category of crime, he said, the police were able to reduce burglary at non-residential premises by 7.1% as well as stock theft by 8.3%.
“Peace, stability, safety and security can be restored should we succeed in our endeavours to reduce these broad categories of crime in Gauteng,” Mawela said.
Pretoria News