Escalating Crime In Old Naledi Worries Kgosi

Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Monday August 21, 2017 16:22

 

In fact his area has the highest criminal rates in Gaborone. Somolekae is concerned that his Customary Court receives and registers both civil and criminal cases on a daily basis. 

Hence Somolokae expressed a great concern over the escalading crime in his area. Speaking at a Kgotla meeting in Old Naledi yesterday, Somolokae said his ward has one of the highest criminal rates in the country’s capital city.

“Some of the common cases we receive include common nuisance, theft, malicious damage of goods, assault which leads to bodily harm and sometimes loss of life.

From January to date, we have received 36 theft cases, three malicious damage, three common assaults, four common stealing and four stealing by servant cases,” he said. He therefore pointed out that to combat crime in the area, they would be hosting a campaign intended to fight, and combat murder cases in the area.

He said recently a group of boys murdered a person.

“If we do not stand together and fight crime in our area, we will never win this fight against crime.  The upcoming campaign includes a march and a house-to-house campaign to engage the community to assist us fight crime. We will be working with the police and business community to fight crime in Old Naledi,” he said.

For his part, councillor Mathata Mosekwa pointed out that recently cases of murder in the area were increasing. He said the area has four gangster groups that are terrorising the community.

“We have to take serious action against these groups and make sure we abolish them before this situation gets out of hand.

We will have a march against crime on September 2, 2017 where we will engage the community to stand against violence and criminal activities.

Enough is enough! Right now we have a community member who is fighting for his life at Princess Marina Hospital after being assaulted by these thugs,” he said.

He said they intended to engage those four groups of gangsters in the campaigns to understand what could be the problem that led them to commit such crimes.

He further pointed out that drug abuse was a contributing factor to crime in the area.

“The people who are engaged in crime are people between 18 to 35 years of age. The community is unsettled with the current illicit activities besieging Old Naledi hence they have taken a step to fight against crime to combat loss of lives,” he said.