KIDNAPPINGS for ransom and extortion are on the rise in Nelson Mandela Bay.
There were 250 kidnapping incidents in the province in the second quarter this year, up by 51 compared to last year.
The Nelson Mandela Bay policing precincts recorded 56 cases, followed by OR Tambo with 23.
This was heard at the crime statistics announcement that covered the second quarter of the 2023/24 financial year in Nelson Mandela Bay on Thursday, 7 November.
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There was less crime between July and September; contact crimes, including murder, attempted murder, and robbery, have dropped by 1,8%, and trio crimes were also down to 11,7%, but there has been a massive rise in cash in transit, truck hijacking, common assault, and assault to cause grievous bodily harm.
Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nomthetheleli Mene said: “The purpose of the Crime statistics release is to check where we are as the province and how we performed during the reporting period, which is the second quarter of 2023-24. Also, to do a crime stats analysis and to identify our hot spot so that we can adjust where we are supposed to adjust in terms of our deployments.”
“The province has done very well during this reporting period. Out of the 17 priority crimes, the province managed to decrease 12. We are still struggling with some cases where we had a slight decrease with our murders. We take the results of the decrease very well because we believe if we decrease murders, somebody’s soul will be saved. We also did well regarding contact crime as we managed to decrease in this quarter,” Mene said.
“Common robbery still gives us a challenge, and we are looking at working very hard to reduce those crimes. Also, what we could not reduce is the assault GBH and common assault, but we are planning to increase visibility and look at our hot spots and address those crimes,” Mene added.
