CAPE TOWN, Western Cape — The City of Cape Town has officially escalated its fight for expanded metro police powers by formally lodging an intergovernmental dispute with the national government. Following years of stalled requests, municipal leaders argue that securing these additional investigative authorities is crucial to combating violent crime and supporting a heavily burdened South African Police Service (SAPS).
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has strongly criticized the national government’s ongoing refusal to devolve these authorities, describing the denial of expanded metro police powers as both “irrational and unconstitutional.” The city maintains that greater localized authority is urgently needed to tackle intractable criminal activities more effectively.
Yusuf Mohamed, the city’s Safety and Security Portfolio Committee member, clarified that the newly lodged intergovernmental dispute is not an act of litigation. Instead, it is a formal constitutional mechanism designed to resolve deadlocks between different spheres of government. Mohamed noted that before taking this step, the city exhausted all reasonable avenues, including engaging with two different Ministers of Police. While both ministers agreed in principle that granting the powers was the right path forward, the city has been unable to secure the final necessary signatures.
A primary point of contention has been public misconception regarding the city’s motives. Mohamed emphasized that the push for expanded metro police powers is by no means an attempt to usurp or replace SAPS. Rather, the initiative is designed to assist the national force, which is currently buckling under a massive backlog of detective and forensic work. By stepping into this operational gap, the city hopes to specifically target violent crimes, gang-related activities, illegal firearms, drug trafficking, and extortion.
The urgent need for better investigative follow-through is highlighted by current local statistics. Mohamed pointed out that between city law enforcement and the provincial LEAP program, authorities successfully confiscate at least one illegal firearm from the streets every day. However, despite these proactive arrests and seizures, the conviction rate for these serious offenses hovers at a mere 5 percent.
“We are making arrests. We are taking guns off the streets. But we are not seeing the convictions at the end of this criminal justice system,” Mohamed explained, attributing the low conviction rate to SAPS’s lack of capacity to handle the overwhelming investigative workload.
The city has successfully managed devolved powers in the past, proving its capability to handle expanded mandates. The Minister of Police previously granted Cape Town the authority to enforce the Immigration Act and manage crowd and riot control—duties traditionally handled exclusively by SAPS and its Public Order Policing Services (POPS) units.
When questioned about the influx of high-caliber, military-style weapons being smuggled into the region from neighboring countries like Namibia, Mohamed acknowledged the severity of the intelligence gap. He linked the proliferation of these weapons directly to a national under-resourcing of police intelligence and forensic capabilities. He argued that this national collapse in investigative capacity is felt all the way down to the local government level, directly fueling the violence seen across the country.
If the constitutional dispute is successful, Cape Town’s expanded metro police powers could set a powerful legal and operational precedent, paving the way for other South African municipalities to similarly bolster their local law enforcement and assist SAPS in the ongoing fight against violent crime.