| City to prioritise safety of its facilities and service delivery through Facility Protection Officers and security escorts | City to prioritise safety of its facilities and service delivery through Facility Protection Officers and security escorts | | <img alt="" src="https://resource.capetown.gov.za/cityassets/PublishingImages/Former%20Mayors%20Header.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | The City encourages volunteers from the former Walking Bus volunteer project in the City of Cape Town to apply to its newest law enforcement unit. | <p></p><p>The City encourages volunteers from the former Walking Bus volunteer project in the City of Cape Town to apply to its newest law enforcement unit. A new unit focused on the protection of service delivery teams, facilities and infrastructure will be forthcoming in the next few months. This is an important step in our plans to make Cape Town safer.</p><p>A new community safety unit is to be established by the middle of the year, and will be located in the Safety and Security Directorate. </p><p>This new unit aims to professionalise the former walking bus programme, giving qualified applicants better security training and equipment, and a broader scope of duties in the community. These teams will specifically help in protecting service delivery crews in identified crime hotspots across the city. These teams include water, fire, electricity, sanitation and cleansing crews who face danger and violence while trying to do their jobs to improve service delivery in communities. </p><p>This unit is critical to ensuring that service delivery is not delayed due to public unrest that threatens the safety of our teams who then have to wait for law enforcement escorts to arrive before they can commence with their work. They can also help in protecting city facilities and infrastructure (like cables) critical to their communities, protecting schools and school routes. This project will have two significant public benefits: freeing up law enforcement resources, and speeding up response times to service delivery complaints in hotspot areas. </p><p>It is our hope that the numerous volunteers in our city will gain an opportunity to professionalise the work that they do for their communities by applying to the vacancies once they open up in the next few months. </p><p>This previous iteration of this project, namely the Walking Bus, was managed directly from the Mayor’s office and officially ended on 15 December when the last of the support contracts that had been in place with EPWP workers ended. Moving forward, the new safety project will no longer be run directly out of the Mayor’s office as it becomes professionalised under the Safety and Security Directorate. </p><p>While the new professionalised project will have fewer positions available than the volunteer based walking bus project, the new unit will be professionally managed, with clear performance targets, clear appointment processes, longer contracts and better pay. The new programme will take a few months to set up, but members of the walking bus programme who meet the requirements for the new project are encouraged to apply once the programme is up and running. </p><p>These future changes for these projects are exciting and promise to provide even greater safety to our most vulnerable areas. </p><p><br><strong>End</strong><br></p> | 2022-01-23T22:00:00Z | GP0|#1d539e44-7c8c-4646-887d-386dc1d95d70;L0|#01d539e44-7c8c-4646-887d-386dc1d95d70|City news;GTSet|#62efe227-07aa-45e7-944c-ceebacca891d | | | | | GP0|#15696db1-c365-4338-937f-8ad8a98077d2;L0|#015696db1-c365-4338-937f-8ad8a98077d2|volunteer;GTSet|#2e3de6c1-9951-4747-8f53-470629a399bb;GP0|#8116a21d-447e-4cb0-b50d-1fbd04f4b2f0;L0|#08116a21d-447e-4cb0-b50d-1fbd04f4b2f0|EPWP;GTSet|#2e3de6c1-9951-4747-8f53-470629a399bb;GP0|#90b49a62-96e2-436a-9c68-187c9ab33534;L0|#090b49a62-96e2-436a-9c68-187c9ab33534|Mayor;GTSet|#2e3de6c1-9951-4747-8f53-470629a399bb | 1 | | | | | | | | | | | 0 |
