– Limpopo recorded 1,185 sexual offences in just three months, including 985 rapes.
– The DA calls on municipalities to do the basics right: cut the grass, clear the bush, clean up public spaces and fix the lights.
– We ask: what became of the Limpopo Government’s commitments to work with municipalities on local crime prevention?
The Democratic Alliance in Limpopo calls on all municipalities in the province to urgently do their part to create safer communities by getting the basics right. Renewed concern over gender-based violence highlights the role municipalities must play in making public spaces safer. That means cutting long grass, clearing overgrown bush, cleaning neglected public spaces and ensuring that streetlights work.
According to SAPS statistics, between January and March 2026 Limpopo recorded 1,185 sexual offences, including 985 rapes, 111 sexual assaults and 74 attempted sexual offences. That amounts to more than 13 reported sexual offences every day, including almost 11 rapes a day.
Municipalities are not responsible for investigating gender-based violence (GBV) or arresting violent criminals. That responsibility rests with SAPS. But municipalities are responsible for many of the public spaces and basic services that affect whether residents can move through their communities safely.
The DA recognises this responsibility: municipalities must use the powers and resources available to them to make communities safer, maintain public spaces and infrastructure, and work with SAPS and community safety structures to fight crime.
Safe communities start with the basics: cut the grass, clear the bush and fix the lights.
This also raises questions about what became of the Limpopo Government’s own commitments on local crime prevention.
In 2022, the Limpopo Department of Transport and Community Safety undertook to work with district and local municipalities to develop district-specific Crime Prevention Strategies. It also continued its Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design programme to clear and clean contact-crime hotspots across the province.
Four years later, residents deserve answers: which municipalities developed these strategies, are they being implemented, and what difference have they made?
But municipalities do not need another strategy before they cut the grass and fix the lights.
The DA calls on municipalities across Limpopo to act now: fix broken streetlights, clear overgrown municipal land and public spaces, clean neglected areas, secure derelict properties and work with SAPS and community safety structures at known crime hotspots.
These measures do not replace effective policing. Perpetrators of gender-based violence and other violent crimes must be arrested, prosecuted and convicted.
But municipalities cannot wash their hands of community safety while the public spaces and infrastructure under their control are allowed to deteriorate.
Safe communities are built by municipalities that work — getting the basics right, maintaining public spaces and delivering for residents.