SAfm, Friday afternoon

You are listening to the national pulse with Ashraf Garda. Right, so let's pick up on this issue of what's happening in the city of the town of Germiston, in fact, which is part of the Gauteng East Rand, right? We've touched on this before, but a Germiston, well, certainly community leaders believe there's illegal mining by Zama Zamas are threatening the safety of residents and the peace. I would take it we know that, but what has changed since?

When we last heard about these issues, with me is the local Community Policing Forum chair, and that's Tracy Anslin from the Primrose Community Policing Forum. In fact, Tracy, thanks for joining us. You're on the pulse. Thank you, and thank you for having me. Right, explain. I mean, I understand the issues of threatening safety and peace. It's not the first time we've spoken about it. What's the state then of the broader Germiston community with regard to illegal mining? Well, especially here in the Primrose side, it has just got a lot worse over the last.

I'd say two to three years. We have constant shootouts down, and some of these shootouts can last five hours. It's that the community are terrified. It's starting at the dump site, which is directly across from our Sommerfeld community and our Witchwood community. And I mean, the bullets are coming flying through windows. It's going into walls of houses, coming through roofs. I'm sure you heard on Friday, the shootout we had on Friday, there was.

Child that was shot with the stray bullets. So it's terrifying at the moment here in Brimrose. Now, I mean, when you say terrifying, I mean, I'm really sorry about that. And of course, many people will feel the same. And the fact that it's ongoing, you're saying it's happening for a few years. So we have spoken about this before. What has been the plan of action in terms of who's doing what to put a stop to this permanently? You know, we've had so many meetings with.

Our municipality, we've had so many meetings with the police. When I say the police, I'm talking about higher up as far as district and provincial level. We've had the premier here, but that's all it is. It's just meetings. They tell us they're going to take action and nothing gets done. We have in the past had the army in here. I think we've had them about nine times in here, but they come in for one day. They come in in the morning, say about six o'clock in the morning.

And by five, six o'clock in the evening, they're gone. So just for that one afternoon, one day, we have a bit of peace and then it just all starts up again. Why do you think it's so difficult then to thwart it? Yes, you've mentioned the army. You said they've come nine times for one, you know, at one day at a time. What A, is the root cause according to you? And what would you suggest, therefore, considering you chair the Community Policing Forum, to be able to put a stop to this permanently?