North West Police have raised concerns around the escalating incidents of service delivery protests in the province.  According to the Police, the province has registered the highest number of protests nationally.

88 protests were reported in a period of three months, between October and December 2024.

Police say many of the protests have gone beyond demanding adequate services to creating anarchy.

Provincial Commissioner Major-General Patrick Asaneng says police are forced to focus on crowd control instead of combating crime.

“In a period of 3 months, October to December, this province, members of the media, experienced and policed 88 protests across the province. and these protests are what we refer to as core business diversions. instead of us dealing with crime and criminality, we take the scarce limited resources to go and police these protests.”

Meanwhile, the Institute for Security Studies says the escalating frequency of these service delivery protests has also created a breeding ground for anarchy.

Willem Els of the institute says, “All your police officers are not trained for crowd control and also most of your police stations are also not well equipped to do that. So, what is happening is police have to mobilise, they have to allegedly use other resources towards these type of policing events and its keeping them from what they really should be doing and that is your prevention of crime, investigation of crime and combating of crime.”

 Concern over escalating protest in North West