DURBAN - A WAR of words has erupted between eThekwini metro police and the Department of Social Development (DSD) over who was responsible for removing vagrants living under M4 bridge freeway near Albert Park.
Metro police deputy commissioner Sibonelo Mchunu told the Daily News on Wednesday that his officers would not be doing anything about the vagrants as it was not their responsibility to remove them, adding that it was the duty of Social Development to take them to rehab.
Mchunu said that his officers, together with SAPS, had previously tried to remove the vagrants and arrested them but they were released and law enforcement agencies were told the vagrants’ presence there was not a crime but a social issue, which needed to be dealt with by the DSD.
“I am sure you recall that our members, working with SAPS, have had a lot of operations there trying to clear vagrants out of the area. We arrested them, but we were discouraged to see that they were released a few minutes after we had left them in the cells, so it was incorrect to blame us for the crime they were committing, because there is nothing we can do to remove them.”
Mchunu added that even sending officers to be stationed there would be a waste of resources, because vagrants do not commit any crime when police are present, adding that the lasting solution was to remove them permanently.
DSD spokesperson Mhlaba Memela hit back at metro police, saying that the municipality had by-laws which police must enforce. Memela said it had never been the responsibility of his department to forcibly remove people and place them in rehab, police must do that.
“I do not want this to sound as if government departments are blaming each other, but police cannot abdicate their responsibility to us. It is their duty to enforce the city by-laws and create shelter for those people, then call us to clean out drugs from their systems. So it is not our duty to go and physically grab people, but we come in and assist once they have been taken and housed.
He added that during the outbreak of Covid-19, it was the municipality which created shelters for these people and asked social workers to assist. He said most of them left the marquees they were placed in.
DAILY NEWS