The City of Cape Town is reportedly pushing for municipal officers to have criminal investigative powers to help build prosecution-ready case dockets for gang, gun, and drug crime.

This comes as the City noted that just 5% of the 1,670 illegal guns seized by the metro’s policing operations from January 2021 to January 2025 have secured criminal convictions.

During a briefing at Hanover Park on Thursday, unpacking the City’s case-tracking data, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis blamed the low conviction rates on the broken criminal justice system.

Hill-Lewis added that the metro policing operations are succeeding in taking more illegal guns off the streets, with the City’s investments to grow policing operations resulting in over 400 illegal firearms confiscated annually, that is handed to SAPS.

“As it stands, municipal officers have the power to arrest and seize firearms, but have not yet been given criminal investigative powers to build case dockets for successful prosecution – powers which the Police Minister can immediately devolve to our well-trained officers by way of regulations under the SAPS Act,” added Hill-Lewis

During the briefing, the City’s case-tracking data showed that the low conviction rates are largely due to the lack of detectives and investigative capacity within SAPS, outstanding ballistics and DNA reports, and slow court and prosecution processes.

The mayor says the metro has the necessary policing resources, which are immediately available to help police and prosecutors raise conviction rates and remove hundreds of violent criminals from communities suffering due to gang, gun, drug, and extortion-related crime.

“No Capetonian should live in daily fear of crime in their neighbourhood – this is not normal and will never be acceptable, especially when the resources exist to change this situation for the better. Our goal is to ensure that criminals are behind bars instead of on the streets terrorising the most vulnerable in our society.”

Hill-Lewis says the City is engaging with SAPS to unlock a more solid partnership on illegal firearm cases, as well as drug, gun and extortion-related cases.

“Above all, the most important step remains the one required of the National Police Minister: to take the simple action of publishing regulations under the SAPS Act to grant criminal investigative powers to our municipal officers,” added Hill-Lewis

The City will reportedly submit draft regulations to the Minister for consideration, and has already worked with SAPS and other stakeholders at a regional level.

The City’s research has revealed that of the 1,670 illegal firearms recovered by Safety and Security services from the period January 2021 until January 2025:

• 81 cases (4,8%)resulted in a guilty verdict
• 126 cases (7,5%) are enrolled and the trial under way, many suffering months or years of delay waiting for ballistics testing
• 75 cases (4,5%) await the NPA’s decision to prosecute
• 38 cases (2,3%) have warrants of arrest issued, some as far back as 2021, with the accused on the run
• 152 cases (9%) have outstanding ballistic or DNA reports
• 180 cases (10,8%) were ‘provisionally withdrawn’, meaning the case is not dropped, but that suspects remain out on bail because the NPA and SAPS still need to finalise the criminal docket before it is ready to bring to court.
• 826 cases (49,5%) were deemed by the NPA to either have insufficient evidence (320) or no prospects of successful prosecution (506), a stark indication of the lack of detective resources to conclude a comprehensive investigation
• 111 cases (6,6%) are either being transferred between stations or deemed to have the incorrect case particulars
• 12 persons (1%) cannot be tried as they are deceased, and a further five cases resulted in a not-guilty verdict

Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, JP Smith, said the alarming lack of SAPS resources applied to these cases was evident, with around 70% of cases not proceeding to successful prosecution due to incomplete investigations, outstanding ballistic and DNA reports, or insufficient evidence gathered.

“From the City’s firearms confiscations tracking data over the last four years, we see around 1 150 accused persons directly implicated in a firearm confiscation by the City’s police, – who are still in the very same communities, likely continuing with their reign of terror due to the case not being successfully prosecuted.”

Smith says the City currently does not have access to shared data from SAPS on the current status of cases and the location of confiscated firearms. This is despite numerous engagements with SAPS and the Memorandum of Cooperation signed in 2024 between the City, SAPS, National Police Minister and Western Cape Government.

A high-level meeting with provincial SAPS top brass on 17 March 2025 led to a SAPS invitation for District Commanders to work more closely with the City to provide status updates on firearms cases. These engagements are reportedly still ongoing.

The City says it has also submitted a PAIA application seeking to gain more granular insight into the reasons for stagnation in specific cases.