Scottsville residents say security cameras have not helped to stop crime in their neighbourhood and some question whether they are still working.
The two CCTV cameras were installed in July last year, one on the corner of Dahlia Street and Orchid Close, the other at the Eikefontein railway station. They cost R17 000 each, including installation, and were paid for out of the budgets for wards 6, 7 and 111, after Sub-council 2 councillors decided they could help to fight crime in crime-ridden communities (“New eye in the sky,” Northern News, July 12, 2017).
But Scottsville resident Johannes Daniels said he had had his doubts about the cameras from the moment they had been installed, and they had not made a dent in the neighbourhood’s crime plague.
“These cameras cannot be working because every weekend someone is being shot and people walking to and from the Eikefontein station are being robbed. So how can the cameras be working, if nothing has changed?”
Another resident, Agnus Fortuin, said she hoped the cameras started earning their keep because crime in the area had
gotten worse.
“I am glad that the cameras were installed, but our area has taken a bad turn. People are killing and robbing each other,”
she said.
Scottsville Neighbourhood Watch chairman Gavin Riddles said the cameras were useless and “not serving its purpose.”
But Kraaifontein police station commander Brigadier Gerda Van Niekerk said the cameras were working and footage from them had been used as evidence in two separate incidents.
She said she couldn’t give out crime statistics but there had been a “definite decrease” in crime, especially gang-related
activity, since the cameras had gone up.