Hon Deputy Chairperson, speaking in the budget debate on police gets harder every year. Another year passes and more of our friends and acquaintances have been the victims of crime or murder. Others are considering leaving the country, taking away their valuable skills and money and I cannot blame them.
There is almost no South African who has not at some state known the victims of several of a serious crime such as rape or murder or both.
I am tired. I am tired of hearing the same presentation every year, followed by the same commitments and promises and then to spent the next year reading about victims and attending funerals of constituents. I am as tired as the people out there are tired.
Every week we hear of another elderly couple tortured and murdered on their farm. We hear of young people on the Cape Flats. Innocently ending up in the line of fire of scum that have turned communities into the battlefield s for their mafia wars.
Forty nine people lose their lives per day on average in this country to murder. We only read of three or four every day in the newspapers. Because if we were to cover all the murders committed in our townships there would be little space left to cover any other news.
We go abroad and asked what the status of crime in our country and we downplay it, but Deputy Chairperson the reality is that it is becoming more and more difficult to do this. Those bitter critics who sit on the other side of the waters making South Africa out to be lawless country are - to mu irritation - getting closer and closer to speaking the truth.
We cannot go on like this.
The department has committed themselves to a presentation before, the select committee on the operational aspects of SA Police
Service's, SAPS's plan to deal with the high murder rate and this is welcomed. I do hope that this will be arranged without delay.
The reason is, Deputy Chairperson, that on the presentation we have received, I have seen little change in terms of urgency to deal with serious crimes, especially murder. This was not only of great concern to the DA, but to all the members of the select committee, showing that there is thankfully a measure of consensus in our committee that something needs to be done.
From our side, we would give the department every bit of support we can in any way that will see a clear and effective plan being put in place. I am yet to see such a plan.
Afrikaans:
Die departement het in hul voorlegging hulself verbind tot landelike veiligheidseenhede in provinsies soos Limpopo, die Noord-Wes, die Vrystaat, die Wes-Kaap en die Oos-Kaap. Hierdie besluit is 'n stap in die regte rigting en moet verwelkom word, maar terselfdetyd dui hulle aan dat daar slegs een voertuig vir elke vyf polisiebeamptes regoor hierdie land is. Daar is geen begroting om hierdie scenario te verbeter nie.
Planne is dus op die tafel, maar dit strook nie met 'n begroting, wat, na bewering, met R6 biljoen gesnoei moet word nie. Dit is nie implimenteerbaar nie en dit is die probleem: Wanneer daar baklei word om mense se lewens te red en te beskerm, is 'n plan nie genoeg nie; daar moet implimentering wees.
Hoeveel lewens moet ons nog verloor, voordat politiek opsy geskuif word en daar weer opgetree word asof 'n lewe, elke lewe, waardevol is? Elke person wat daagliks in hierdie land weens 'n moord sterf, is 'n broodwinner wat 'n gesin het om na om te sien, 'n bejaarde ouer wat niemand skade aandoen nie, 'n kind wie se ouers hom nou moet begrawe.
Die Adjunminister het aan die komitee sy woord gegee dat hierdie tipe misdaad prioriteit sal geniet. Ek wil hom glo, maar as ek sien dat die begroting vir die beskerming van hooggeplaasdes met R200 miljoen meer aangepas word, kan ek nie die publiek daarbuite blameer vir hul woede jeens hierdie regering nie.
Hoekom is die lewe van 'n politikus belangriker as die van 'n landbouer wat kos op ons tafels sit, of as die van 'n elkelouer op die Kaapse Vlakte wat na haar kinders moet omsien, maar nie weet of sy vanaand veilig by die huis gaan kom nie?
Die prioriteite wat weerspiel word in hierdie begroting reflekteer dat hierdie regering se belangrikste prioriteit nie die lewens van die mense daar buite is nie.
English:
Similarly, Deputy Chairperson, if we are serious about fixing what is wrong within SAPS, I would seriously urge my colleagues in this House not to be in favour of the breadcrumbs that is intended for Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Ipid. This budget needs to be seriously increased in order to properly capacitate this unit to do its job.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate's indications are that they are currently faced with a backlog of almost 12 000 cases with a new case load of 6 000 more being broad to the directorate every year. In simple terms, it is not sustainable with the current low capacity. Some officers could go through the entire careers at this rate without ever being held accountable.
Deputy Chairperson, of these more than 11 000 cases, they are all criminal in nature and of course against SAPS members. In other words, our police service is rotten with criminals and the
government fails to properly fund the body that should get rid of them.
If there was any will to deal with the rot in SAPS, the budget of Ipid needs to be increased without delay. If the government will not do it, we as a House should stand together across party lines and force it down. It is within our power to do so.
Deputy Chairperson, I can go on for hours about all the challenges that this department faces. I do not intend to do so. My plea today is simply that we find the way, across party lines and by doing our part as Parliament, to deal with the killing of our citizens. In this, the only commitment I ask from the department is that it would acknowledge the problem, reprioritise and acknowledge that the modus operandi of the past five years have not worked as we hoped.
We stand at the beginning of the new term, this Sixth Parliament. From my experience so far, I can honestly say that I believe that the select committee is comprised of members whom I respect and who agree that something drastically needs to be done to ensure the safety of South Africans.
To those colleagues, through you to the Deputy Chairperson, I would like to say the following: Yes, our task as the NCOP is to represent provincial interests on a national level. We also have a duty of oversight, but in my opinion a different oversight as the one that the National Assembly practices. We cannot be a better National Assembly than the National Assembly.
We need to come up firstly with a mechanism to ensure that we take another look at national legislation pertaining to the police and Ipid, to call in the advice of experts in the fields of crime prevention - particularly specialised crime - and to come up with solutions, across party lines and from all provinces, to make sure that we change what we can in this regard and with the information that we collect in order to put a stop to bad administration and to ensure that the people are put first.
Secondly, it is vital that we get our provinces more involved in the effort to create safer communities. There is a very worrying narrative that we are a unitary state. This is political rhetoric. We are not. However, we are also not a federal state.
For us to acknowledge the importance of our provinces, as we all in this House ought to do, we should acknowledge that we are a quasi-
federal state where the people are best governed where there is an optimal co-operation between the national and provincial spheres of government. The provinces are not irrelevant.
If my province and its government can play some role in making the Free State a safer place to live in, I would like to see the Free State government being given more power to play this role. And the same goes for all our provinces.
This can be done without changing the Constitution as there is already a precedent by the Department of Justice and Correctional Services in the last 25 years.
We need to work together to change the role that the NCOP has played over the past 22 years of its existence in creating safer communities, in co- operating with the SAPS and in holding the department accountable.
I believe that it is our wish - all of us - to see a safer South Africa. If we have a common goal, then there is already more that unite us that unites us or not. I would ask my colleagues, Deputy Chairperson, to consider this plea. The DA in the NCOP is undoubtedly committed to this from our side.
Deputy Chairperson, people are dying. Every single day. It is no longer about military ranks and egos; about blue lights and which sphere of government has the most muscle. It should never be. There is a constitutional mandate on this department to protect all our citizens from harm.
We are a constitutional democracy and I can assure you that there are millions of South Africans like myself who wish to see our democracy work. Naturally, this government cannot be held to a standard of an autocratic government as the one we had and should never return to, neither to the standard of countries which are at war or politically unstable.
If we wish to be respected a constitutional democracy, we should be held to the standards of a constitutional democracy, which places the protection of our citizens' lives and their safety right at the top. We need to build a culture of respect for each others lives and that starts with the respect for each other as individuals.
Deputy Chairperson, for our democracy to work, we need to achieve this. The people are starting to forget what real freedom feels like whilst some have never had a privilege of feeling it at all. Real freedom is not to fear for your life. It is not to fear the state
and it is not to fear your neighbour. It never was and therefore we have work to do.
Thomas Jefferson summed it up by saying and I quote:
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
I beg of you to indeed make this your first and only project. I thank you. [Applause.]