The Gugulethu Community Policing Forum (CPF) has welcomed the appointment of Col Cyril Nkuna as the local acting station commissioner with open arms.
Nkuna, who started at the station early this month, took over from Brig Nokuzola Pete who has since been deployed to Paarl.
The CPF says it is open to working with the new police boss to alleviate crime in the area.
Ntandazo Gcingca, Gugulethu CPF chair, says Nkuna arrived at the station at a perfect time. He says the station urgently requires stability after many shooting incidents in the precinct. “We are ready to work with him,” he says.
Nkuna is not new to the station. He worked at the station for eight years before he moved to Atlantis in 2021.
Gcingca stated that all they wanted was to see more police on the streets. He highlighted domestic violence, car hijackings, murders and gender-based violence as some of the most common crimes in the area. He appealed to the community to work with the police to boost crime-fighting efforts in the neighbourhood.
In an interview with City Vision, Nkuna said his mandate is to ensure community safety. He reiterated Gcingca’s sentiment and urged the community to work with the police.
“One of the things I need to do is to ensure that the neighbourhood watch and street committees are active. Also to ensure that there is police visibility all the time. The provincial police office has deployed more task forces to add numbers to our officers, making it easy to deploy more officers on hotspot areas,” said Nkuna.
Provincial police spokesperson Brig Novela Potelwa confirmed the departure of Pete from Gugulethu to Paarl citing that it was to enhance stability in the station.
“I can’t say how long Nkuna is going to be acting in the station because we need to follow all the procedures and advertise the post,” said Potelwa.