Alliance of Citizens for Change calls for Covid-style lockdown on the Cape Flats

It was another bloody weekend on the Cape Flats with at least 22 people killed and 16 critically injured.

Communities are living in fear as gangs continue with their campaign of urban terror.

With policing efforts struggling to curb the violence, Masizole Mnqasela, President of the Alliance of Citizens for Change (ACC), is proposing a radical strategy to address the crisis.

This is an everyday struggle, people are unable to live freely, he says.

"Why is nothing being done? Because these are not rich people, they are not the highest rate payers in the city."

Mnqasela says the failure lies with national government, the Metro police and the provincial government who, he says, need to all work together.

"You cannot claim to lead people, and fail to recognise their plight."

Among the measures Mnqasela is proposing are a nightly curfew in high-crime zones, mandatory roadblocks and checkpoints and rapid police deployment squads, supported by the defence force.

"ACC is saying we need to implement some of the successes of Covid 19...in some of these places, in broad daylight, there is warfare, gang wars that we have not been able to deal with," he says.

To listen to Masizole Mnqasela in conversation with CapeTalk's Clarence Ford, click audio below.