More than 50 people were arrested on Saturday morning following a joint police operation in the Johannesburg CBD. Operation NomakanjaniManje Namhlanje is aimed at targeting undocumented foreigners, as well as general crime prevention.

Amongst those arrested are suspects found in possession of drugs, suspected stolen copper cables, and undocumented foreign nationals.

Law enforcement officials, together with private security, were all boots on the ground on Saturday in the inner city of Johannesburg.

This brought many streets in the CBD to a complete standstill.

MMC for Community Safety, Mgcini Tshwaku, says lawlessness will not be tolerated in the inner city.

“There are some copper cables that we confiscated and drugs as well. We also found a number of the people here don’t have any form of identification, and they have been taken away by SAPS. I think we are in the range of fifty or more that have been taken for profiling. Remember, we did the same campaign two days ago, and we profiled 120 people, and out of them, 80 had no identification, and those were the people SAPS have been looking for.”

Councilor of Ward 63 in the inner-city, Xolani Khumalo, says such operations are a necessity in the area, as crime is rampant and many law-abiding citizens fall victim to criminals on a daily basis.

“It is very, very bad, and as we speak right now the communities are robbed in walk ways. And as for the city, we want to renovate the paving, but we can’t do anything because it is congested because everyone is selling illegally. Those people must be removed, and they must get an alternate selling site. On top of that, those people are not paying the city anything; they are just selling like nobody’s business,” Khumalo explains.

MMC for Health & Social Development, Ennie Makhafola, who was also part of the operation, says many shop owners and vendors were found flouting environmental health standards.

“You will find in most of the shops they don’t have ventilation, and they don’t even comply with the environmental health standards. But what we have seen here in this operation is that most of the clothes are very dirty. So ours is to really educate the communities as to what they exactly getting themselves into because according to them they are just buying clothes that are cheaper of which they are not putting their health first.”

More than 200 officials raided numerous shops and street vendors in search of drugs, illicit goods, as well as undocumented foreigners.