Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has issued a stark warning about a significant decline in the number of South African Police Service officers on the streets of the metro, calling the situation a ‘collapse’ in police resources.
The mayor revealed in a Council meeting that SAPS staffing in the city has fallen by roughly 15% over the past four years, as reported by Smile FM.
This decline comes at a time when the City of Cape Town has been adding its own officers to the streets, a move it says is necessary to “step into the gap” left by the struggling national police service.
Citing official data, Geordin provided figures that paint a clear picture, as the number of operational SAPS officers in the Cape Town metropolitan area has declined from 8,668 in 2021 to just 7,355 in 2025. This represents a loss of more than 1,300 officers.
“That’s not coming off a satisfactory base either,” Geordin stressed. “We all know that Cape Town’s hardest-hit crime areas have been under-resourced by SAPS for decades.”
The resource gap isn’t just about personnel, as information from the Council address indicates the City’s fleet of law enforcement vehicles now outnumbers the SAPS fleet in the metro by around 360 vehicles. City officials state they have 2,433 vehicles, compared to the 2,071 vehicles from SAPS, with a higher percentage of the City’s fleet considered operational.
The mayor did not mince words about the implications of these numbers, describing them as “deeply concerning and actually outrageous.” He directly linked the police shortage to the ongoing gang violence on the Cape Flats.
“Not a week goes by without a terrible new example of innocent people killed by warring gang members, and very often, they are young children,” he said.
Hill-Lewis pointed to the recent tragedies, including the death of 12-year-old Faizel Challis and the shooting of a 14-year-old boy on his way to school, as heartbreaking examples of the human cost.
While expressing doubt that SAPS numbers will improve soon, Hill-Lewis said the City will continue strengthening its own safety measures. “We’re getting on with doing what we can do here,” he stated.
He also applauded recent safety milestones, including the graduation of more than 700 new City police officers last month (September) and the deployment of a new N2 Highway Unit made up of 40 officers.
The Mayor then concluded that he would keep pushing for City law enforcement officers to be granted investigative powers. He confirmed that a formal letter outlining the SAPS resourcing decline had been sent to Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia on 20 October.
Written by Lulama Klaasen
First published by Cape {Town} etc
Also see: Cape Town Mayor Geordin-Hill Lewis responds to Johann Rupert on crime in WC
