Thank you very much,
hon member. I am sure you might be aware that we would not have deployed in the Western Cape had it not been a request made to us by the Minister. The Minister made a request and the two of us approached the President as the commander-in-chief. The commander- in-chief agreed and I then sat down and draft the presidential minutes for deployment. Later the President informed Parliament.
Now, you are talking about effective policing. Really, the reality is that the challenges of the Western Cape, if we may say, have nothing to do with effective or ineffective policing. They have everything to do with the socioeconomic conditions of the people of the Western Cape. In fact, when we were discussing as Minister we were saying that we can step in and make this kind of intervention to assist the police and give them as much support so that they can
deal with issues of gangsterism and the murders of our people here. But for as long as we do not address the hunger, poverty and conditions under which people live in the area, we will continue to have these kind of problems.
I have been to some of the informal settlements and I am sure that during your campaign you too have been to some of them. These huge informal settlements there are no single light working at night. You have a huge settlement where there are no roads in between for you to drive. These are some of the things which make our people vulnerable to attacks by gangsters. You find a seven-year-olds, eight-year-olds and nine-year-old carrying guns, smoking drugs, hungry and sleeping in the streets. You are bound to have this kind of situation. Now, ours is to send a word that you stop it, stop it and stop it now.
But not that we are foolish enough not to appreciate that the whole thing may as well repeat itself for as long as the sociocondition and the welfare of people is not being looked after. You need to create employment for the people; you need to make sure that our people get their grants when they expect them; you have to build houses; and you have to improve and make their lives better in order for them to understand that young boys and girls cannot be part of
the gangster culture. Young boys and girls should remain at home, should be home by sun set instead of being out in the street smoking "nyaope" [a drug also known as whoonga]. I think this is the reality that all of us ... and this has nothing to do with politics and about who is governing who, but it has everything to do with the welfare of South Africans. And in this instance we happen to be talking about deployment in the Western Cape. Thank you.