BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE– In the year 2022, South African Police Service (SAPS) came through for emaSwati in a big way.
Over 24 cars that were stolen from emaSwati during hijackings and later sold in South Africa were found and brought back to the owners in the year 2022. The cars were successfully brought back to the country with help from citizens and Royal Eswatini Police Services (REPS)
This information was shared by SAPS Regional Spokesperson Captain Kevin Masondo. He was sharing this information sourced from their end of year report.
When unpacking the report Masondo said from their report, it indicated that 26 cars were stolen in Eswatini and were later traced and found in the neighbouring country South Africa.
In addition to that Captain Masondo revealed that with help from REPS, they were able to trace back some the cars to their owners and was successfully given back to them.
“This year our reports reflected that with help from our neighbours, we were able to curb the activity of hijackings and car theft. We have had a number of crime cases that required us to work together with law enforcers from Eswatini,” he said.
He also mentioned that while they were able to curb some other crimes, especially ones related to Eswatini they still had one activity that saw a number of emaSwati being arrested in South Africa.
“We however have a lot of Swati people being arrested in entry points, the number of people arrested this year only dropped by six per cent, yet last year they had dropped by 10 per cent,” he said.
When Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati were sought for a comment on the report shared by SAPS, she said they were happy to know about this information.
“Without compromising how we work and our security Intel we cannot mention how this was made possible but the work we have done is commendable,” she said.
