Despite one murder every 20 minutes and a minimum of one rape every 12 minutes, Cyril Ramaphosa prefers to waste money on a PR stunt that is nothing more than a ‘cheap’ trick.
“Our violent crime rate is worse than some active war zones. South Africa is a blood bath,” says Ian Cameron, Director of Community Safety at Action Society. “Yet, our president tries to be the saviour of peace abroad. It does not make sense.”
Action Society has presented various steps to solving the crime situation in the country to the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele. We will now also have to underline urgent domestic problems to President Ramaphosa and some basic guidelines on effectively spending South Africa’s borrowed budget to fulfil its principal mandate of making the country safe for all.
Action Society suggests the following solutions to crime in South Africa:
- Do a skills audit in the SAPS to determine the merit of appointments and sack members not appointed on merit.
- Polygraph all members – starting with leadership – to determine whether they have been involved in any corrupt activities; if so, sack them.
- Restore crime intelligence capabilities.
- Reinstate specialised units that can effectively deal with serious violent crime without living in the community where they work.
- Crime kingpins, including those with state connections, must be targeted and taken out of operation.
- Restore reservist capabilities, specifically to support specialised units. It is of utmost importance that these reservists do not come from the said communities for intimidation to be limited.
- Pay police members properly.
- Implement police devolution in the Western Cape as a proof of concept.
