At a town meeting 0n Wednesday, 19 January 2011 most of the inhbitants of Sputangia who attendended the monthly community meeting signed a declaration to minimise the use of locks in the town. It does not ban the use of locks and guns for example will still be locked securely in safes as required by South African law.
But when parking a car in the street it will be left unlocked, unless again there is a good reason to lock. The purpose of this (non binding) decision or declaration of intent as it is called. Is to create the kind of society we all wish to live in.
When the local locksmith, Knox Radebe was asked for comment on this decision he said: "Only time will tell whether this will be implemented - you know the townsfolk are full of bright ideas, but in the end everyone does his or her own thing. And besides, there are many other things tthat one could do - if people start sleeping with unlocked doors they may have a need for passive alarm systems..."
The chairman neighbourhood watch said that though they had no incidents in the past six months he would still recommend that people lock up. "We are not far from the city and one can never know about these things."
The initiator of the project, Jaco Louwrens said: "I grew up on a farm in the Karroo , we never locked the place. Then too we never paid taxes! People in a society should not be afraid that other people would take their things - property rights is one of the most sacred rights that a person has and all in a society should respect that. One should never blame the victim of a crime and not locking ones property shows the level of development in a society, and in Sputangia we have attained that high level of security.