‘Woluwes’ plan to hire private cops

29 April 2004

BRUSSELS – The communes of Woluwe Saint-Pierre and Woluwe Saint-Lambert, both just outside of Brussels, are planning to hire private security firms to help reduce local crime rates, it was confirmed on Thursday.

The mayors of both communes said the security guards would only be given surveillance duties and would not be allowed to arrest suspected criminals, La Libre Belgique reported.

Instead they would be ordered to alert the police if they saw anything suspicious.

It remains to bee seen whether the two mayors will get their way however.

Their plan has not yet been approved by a majority of local councillors in either of the ‘Woluwes’ and La Libre Belgique says scepticism about the strategy is running high, especially among members of the French speaking socialist party (PS).

Other politicians have openly criticised what they see as a cheap electoral gambit on the part of the two mayors.

“Six weeks before regional elections we suddenly realise there is a problem with insecurity in Woluwe Saint-Pierre,” Benoit Cerhexe of the centre right Centre Democrate Humaniste (CDH) party told La Libre Belgique.

He argued that the job of keeping Belgium’s streets safe should rest exclusively with the police.

[Copyright Expatica News 2004]

Subject: Belgian news