20 Jun 2019

Kgosi Clarence Chikuba of Masukwane in the North East District has expressed joy over the declining crime rate in his village since this year.

In an interview in Masukwane, Kgosi Chikuba attributed the decline to the formation of a crime prevention cluster.

He stated that Masukwane, Pole and Mosojane cells came together and formed a cluster consisting of village leaders, police officers and other members.Kgosi Chikuba stated that in the past years, Masukwane was hard hit by house break-ins where criminals would escape with house furniture.

He highlighted that Masukwane Primary School was one of the schools in the district that was hit by criminals who stole computers and electronics in 2017.

The village leader stated that the criminals cut the school fence and entered the school premises while the security guard was at the guard room.

Kgosi Chikuba said they realised that there was a rapid increase of peculiar house break-ins and illegal employment of foreigners in the three villages hence the formation of the crime prevention cluster.

He said last year criminals developed a pattern where they would break into households on successive nights in each of the three villages.

Kgosi Chikuba pointed out that public servants houses were the ones mostly affected, especially on weekends when they were away.

He said the pattern was peculiar in that thieves would only break into houses whose owners were away which made them believe the perpetrators were Masukwane children.

He stated that as leaders they called the community in order to put the crime prevention cluster in motion so as to eliminate any acts of crime.

Kgosi Chikuba highlighted that ever since the formation of the cluster, house break-ins had stopped completely because they did night patrols and mobilised neighbourhood watch.

He stated that whenever they observed an uncommon behaviour from someone in the village they interrogated them to find out what their intentions were.

In 2019, he said there were no reported cases of house break-ins and harbouring of illegal immigrants, which he said was an indication that the cluster was successful.

The leader indicated that they requested residents to stop harbouring illegal immigrants because whoever was caught would be disciplined accordingly. ENDS