Campus Control has warned students against swiping non-students onto campus saying the practice endangers lives.
“A matter that is becoming a challenge is the misuse of access cards by students. This practice puts the lives of people on campus at risk,” said Michael Mahada, investigations manager at Campus Control.
He said it was an offence to use someone’s card or permit unauthorised access to campus and this would result in charges against the card owner.
Witsies admit that students make it difficult to keep the campus safe. “Students also make Campus Control’s job difficult by swiping non-students on to the campus,” said Thulane Mtsweni, post graduate LLB.
A lack of security is the reason students say they do not feel safe on campus according to a recent Vuvuzela vox pop video
Some students said Campus Control was invisible on campus.
“You walk around on campus for five minutes and you don’t see security around other than at the entrances, but generally you don’t see them on campus,” said Solomon Magampa, 1st year BSc mining engineering.
Mtsweni said he had issues with Campus Control because “at night they are nowhere to be found, so if something were to happen to you, you would have to go to CB1 and by that time the perp might have already gotten away”.
Mahada said security officers patrolled campus 24 hours a day. He said they also had security officers who patrolled in uniforms, civilian clothing as well as the reaction unit and dog handlers to safeguard the campus.
In addition they provided an escort service to students on all campuses and were available to walk students to university residences off-campus including those not serviced by the university bus service.
Call 011 717 4444 or 011 717 6666 to arrange an escort service. Witsies are encouraged to make use of the escort services in particular after hours and weekends.
