Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant General Tommy Mthombeni.

• Gauteng recorded a 5.9% decline in contact crimes in the fourth quarter, with murder down 15%, rape down 9.9% and attempted murder down 3.2%.
• Property-related crimes and carjackings also fell, with carjacking down 17.1% and house and business robberies contributing to a 9.7% drop.
• Despite the overall decline in crime, kidnappings increased by 1.6% and sexual assault rose by 5.2% during the January-to-March period.

Gauteng has recorded a 5.9% decline in contact crimes, including a 15% decrease in murder, provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Tommy Mthombeni said on Tuesday.

Mthombeni was presenting the fourth-quarter crime statistics, for January to March, to the Gauteng legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Community Safety.

The statistics indicated that attempted murder decreased by 3.2% and rape decreased by 9.9%. Sexual assault increased by 5.2%.

Mthombeni said that the top three causative factors for murder are arguments, misunderstandings, road rage, provocation, vigilantism and robbery.

Also on the decline according to the crime statistics was assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm by 2.2%, common assault by 1.2%, common robbery by 4.1% and robbery with aggravating circumstances by 13%.

Arson and malicious damage to property declined marginally by 0.3%.

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Mthombeni conceded that Gauteng remained the country’s largest contributor to serious crime, accounting for 26% of the country’s 17 community-reported serious crime categories.

He said while several violent crime categories improved, kidnappings continued to rise.

Gauteng recorded 38 more kidnapping cases than during the corresponding period last year, representing a 1.6% increase.

He said many kidnappings were linked to vehicle hijackings, but credited joint operations involving national anti-kidnapping task teams, organised crime investigators, the private security sector and Business Against Crime South Africa for the arrest of 616 suspects linked to kidnapping cases between January and March.

He said the killing of police officers on duty also remained a serious concern, with two officers being killed during the quarter.

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Mthombeni said the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) Unit continued to secure convictions against offenders.

During the quarter, 1 287 sexual offence cases were brought before the courts, resulting in 128 offenders receiving sentences amounting to 19 life terms and a combined 109 years’ imprisonment.

“To this end, the FCS continues to work closely with relevant stakeholders to intensify gender-based violence and femicide related awareness campaigns towards encouraging the reporting of the incidents,” he said.