Residents in the Laudium area continue to live in fear due to crime, despite the Laudium CPF ‘painting a good picture’ of CPF members regularly patrolling the streets of Laudium.
Ironically on many of the crime related posts that the CPF or Cllr Patel decide to post, they would state the usual-that CPF members, together with members from the Ward 61 Residents Association and Cllr Patel’s office are at the scene. The question that residents keep on asking is: What exactly are these members doing at the scene? Are they busy taking selfies of themselves again or just busy ‘chit chatting?’ Furthermore, residents are well aware that members such as Paul Bennet, who heads Patel’s office, represent all three of these groupings, so if the likes of Paul are alone at the scene, he would in fact be representing all three of these groupings, which Patel ‘runs’ (according to many down on the ground).
This follows residents of Laudium Ext 3 once more complaining about the exorbitant crime in their area and the lack of police or CPF patrols.
In one of the recent incidents of crime in the area, thieves entered an Apex Crescent property in Laudium Ext 3. It is believed that at least two Black males jumped over the back wall, in the early part of the evening, while no one was at home, broke into the house from the kitchen door and stole a number of valuable and large items, including a welding machine, a griller and a grinder from the house.
Janthie Pillay, owner of the targeted Apex Crescent home, lamented to the Laudium Sun, “We were not at home when the theft occurred. My son and I had gone out and the break-in must have taken place at around 6:30pm. Our neighbour noticed two Black African males in our yard, but assumed that they were plumbers, so they didn’t contact us at the time. When we returned home, we realized that a number of our items were missing, including a welding machine, a griller and a grinder, which we kept in our kitchen for safety reasons. We saw footprints in the yard and figured that the suspects had jumped into our yard from the back wall and broken our kitchen door to gain entry. The stolen items are worth around R8,000. It’s extremely upsetting. Crime is really bad in Laudium and it’s just getting worse every day. Even with all the security measures like the gating system, criminals seem un-bothered. As a community, we’ve failed to protect ourselves and the criminals are taking advantage of this. It must stop. We urgently need more police and other patrollers and efficient community volunteers, who are serious about making our area safer.”
Chantel Moonsamy of Taj Street told the Laudium Sun, “Crime in Laudium is really bad and there are a lot of incidents happening on our street. I believe that because we are close to the squatter camp this is probably making it easier for criminals to take advantage of this area. The crime needs to stop. There must be a proper strategy in place to combat it, otherwise as a community, we are losing the fight against crime in Laudium. We need visible policing in the area, as due to the high crime rate, more and more families are leaving Laudium. If this continues, there will be no local Indian families left in the area, as foreigners and criminals are slowly taking over.”
Bilal Ahmed, another resident of Apex Crescent, told the Laudium Sun, “There are a lot of break-ins happening in our community and it’s really upsetting. Laudium is facing many problems, but one of the biggest issues is the rising crime, which has reached alarming levels. There needs to be proper law and order enforced in Laudium, otherwise we’re literally giving up on our community. If nothing is done soon, we won’t be able to save Laudium.”
