MEDIA STATEMENT BY COUNCILLOR PATRICIA VAN DER ROSS, MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR COMMUNITY SERVICES AND HEALTH
The City of Cape Town’s Masincedane Clinic in Nyanga was robbed last week and in the early hours of this morning, the Brown’s Farm Library was burgled.
These incidents necessitated the closure of the clinic and forced patrons to use nearby libraries for their SmartCape needs.
Crime is an ongoing scourge in our communities and when it affects facilities residents depend on, it not only hampers service delivery but also puts lives at risk.
In the case of the Masincedane Clinic, security staff were robbed at gunpoint on Friday 19 August and the facility will be closed until Tuesday 30 August.
This means clients have to attend the neighbouring clinics of Gugulethu, Vuyani and Nyanga.
Those with appointments have been contacted to reschedule their health visits, while chronic medication is being couriered to clients at the alternative clinics they are attending in the interim.
This puts extra strain on services that are already stretched, while the impact on our vulnerable residents is severe. They now have to travel further and spend additional money to get to a clinic.
The Brown’s Farm Library was burgled in the early hours of the morning when thieves broke through a security gate and door.
They made off with a number of SmartCape and City of Cape Town computers, monitors, hand-held scanners, keyboards, first aid kit and multi-plugs. SmartCape is an Internet service designed to help citizens of Cape Town access the Internet, free of charge.
The library remains open, but patrons who want to make use of the SmartCape facility will have to do so at the nearby Crossroads Library for the foreseeable future.
The trauma on staff cannot be measured and this often leads to longer closures as they recover from these incidents.
The cost to replace stolen items and the value of time and services lost, is yet to be calculated.
It’s a cost the communities and the directorate can ill afford.
The criminals, and the residents who protect them, must realise that the quality of the services they receive are negatively impacted by the extra money we have to spend on safeguarding facilities, repairing damages and replacing stolen resources.
Residents can report crime and by-law offences anonymously, 24-hours a day, on 0800 110077.
Caption: The Brown’s Farm Library after it was burgled this morning.
Source: City Of Cape Town