Cape Town CCTV win

The City of Cape Town’s safety and security directorate has announced that it has seen a 45% increase in CCTV-related arrests and a 93% increase in incident detections due to the technology.

The municipality’s safety and security portfolio committee chairperson, Mzwakhe Nqavashe, told Cape Talk that just under 2,000 municipally owned cameras are scattered throughout the metro.

Mzwakhe said that while CCTV is a very effective tool for deterring crime, increasing the number of cameras will not ultimately stop crime.

Cape Town recorded 454 CCTV-related arrests in the past financial year, compared to 312 arrests made during the previous year — a 45% increase.

However, the number of incidents detected by CCTV cameras almost doubled, increasing by 93% — from 22,498 to 43,457.

These numbers had increased drastically since the first half of 2020, when 6,200 incidents were detected and 115 CCTV-related arrests were made.

Nqavashe says the crimes detected by the CCTV cameras vary from petty crimes and smash-and-grabs to cash-in-transit vehicle attacks.

The Western Cape, specifically Cape Town, has suffered from extremely high crime rates and levels of gangsterism. Parts of the city have murder rates so high it has been likened to a warzone.

The metro and the national government have invested millions in attempting to curb crime in these areas.

One of the largest of the metro’s CCTV projects in 2023 cost R4.2 million to install cameras along Baden Powell Drive.

In July 2019, the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) was sent into parts of the Cape Flats in an attempt to suppress the gang violence. They were deployed there for eight months.

Regarding privacy, Nqavashe said that the footage can’t be provided to just any member of the public, although there are ways to access this information.

However, he said there are two ways people can apply for access to footage under certain circumstances, such as proving to an insurer that a car crash wasn’t their fault.

The first is to apply using a case number, which can be retrieved from the case detective or the insurer.

If this option fails, the metro has an application that citizens can use to request access to the information under the Promotion of Access to Information Act by motivating their case.

The footage can then be released with conditions such as not being able to post it on social media.

Cape Town residents with private CCTV cameras can also join the city’s greater CCTV network, which, according to Nqavashe, could yield multiple benefits.

He said residents with street-facing CCTV could add their cameras to the network, giving them access to the larger network when they need it.

This could be useful when private CCTV cameras do not catch enough footage of criminals.

In addition to combatting crime, Cape Town has implemented systems to control infrastructure, minimise excessive resource consumption, and control crime.

Cape Town recently announced the launch of its pump station control room’s digital hub, which will be used to track water and sanitation infrastructure. The investment cost over R7.4 million.

This new system allows staff to monitor 401 sewer pump stations, 58 water pump stations, and 60 reservoirs around the metro. When an issue arises outside of business hours, it contacts response teams via SMS.

“The tracking system is helping to quickly dispatch teams to attend to infrastructure performance issues,” Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said.

Following Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis’s announcement of an infrastructure budget of R39.5 billion for the next three years, MyBroadband contacted the metro for commenton how this budget would contribute to similar smart infrastructure projects.

“On the energy front, the city has a mega Mayoral Priority Programme to diversify energy resources and to open up the energy grids,” the mayoral committee member for energy, Xanthea Limberg, said.

As part of this initiative, Cape Town has also invested in 100 power-lite municipal buildings that have saved R84 million, 72.5 MW, and 71,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over 12 years.

This was thanks to three things implemented in each building: the installation of LED lighting, a retrofit of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, and smart metering.

The smart metering uses Smart Facility, a web-based data application that captures municipal buildings’ water and electricity consumption.

“Smart Facility illustrates the data on several dashboards to facility managers and management staff for proactive monitoring and management of municipal facility consumption,” the metro said.

Investment into this type of infrastructure is said to continue, although the MMC did not say how much is being allocated.