Pretoria, 25 March 2016: On Thursday, 24 March 2016, the Minister of Police, Mr Nkosinathi Nhleko and the Acting National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, Lieutenant General Khomotso Phahlane, officially launched Operation Lockdown in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape.

Operation Lockdown is an unique policing intervention aimed at stabilizing affected areas and combatting gang-related violence and criminal activity in the precincts of Bethelsdorp and Gelvandale in Port Elizabeth. This flows from the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster's direction, on 21 February 2016, that multi-disciplinary action should be taken to proactively tackle gangsterism in those areas.

At the launch on Thursday, Lt Gen Phahlane said: "We are going to make the lives of the criminal element in those areas uncomfortable. We are doing this, as the SAPS, because we have listened to the community and we want to support them and make their lives safer by taking the gangs' illicit markets away from them".

The launch of Operation Lockdown saw the Minister and senior police management walking through the streets of Bethelsdorp and Gelvandale, while various police units conducted operations. Minister Nhleko, Lt Gen Phahlane and other police managers interacted with both the community and police members to get a realistic overview of the challenges experienced in those areas.

At a media briefing directly after the walkabout, Minister Nhleko emphasised that the mission focus of Operation Lockdown is to (1) build the community's confidence in the SAPS, leading to improved police-community relations, which will result in (2) arrests and successful prosecutions as we intend to collaborate closely with the NPA (3) the recovery of unlicensed firearms used to commit gang-related crimes and (4) the confiscation of illicit drugs and the incarceration of drug lords.

Operation Lockdown began provincially three weeks ago. During this time, 21 arrests were made in the two areas, including six arrests for unlicensed firearms (with six firearms being seized), five arrests for dagga, four arrests for car hijacking, three arrests for Mandrax, and one arrest each for drunken driving, possession of Tik and possession of ammunition.

As Minister Nhleko emphasised during the media briefing yesterday, Operation Lockdown has now been "upscaled". Additional deployments have been put in place from both the national and provincial police offices, including members from detectives, the Hawks, intelligence, the Special Task Force, the National Intervention Unit, the Tactical Response Team, Public Order Policing, the Air Wing and Provincial Traffic. We must emphasise that day-to-day policing will continue in the two station areas.

"The police will be stabilizing these areas until 30 June 2016. We will then review the situation, look at the crime figures and re-evaluate," said Minister Nhleko. "We want to be in a position to advise the Social Development and other departments, such as Education and Health, that they can intensify their efforts to ensure that these communities can start to move towards an improved socio-economic position".

"This is a police management intervention, in line with government direction. We are serious about bringing stability to these areas so that children may grow up enjoying their youth and parents can sleep at night, knowing their children are safe," said Lt Gen Phahlane.

Enquiries: Brigadier Sally de Beer: 0827798658