And the issue of numbers in modern policing is not the issue. The issue, as Mr Wiley and his ilk should know, is technology. That is the issue today. They are still trapped in the twilight of the past. They are cheeky and they do not want to move out of that past. It is not numbers. In any other field that we are talking about, we are talking about technology.
It is precisely on that score that this Minister, the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development, and I went to the United Kingdom to explore ways and means of upgrading, technologically, the investigative capacity of the members of the SA Police Service, because it was never in the NP's scheme of things to introduce that when it was in power. All the NP gave them were these sjamboks ... [Laughter.] All they gave them were guns to skiet and donder [shoot and assault]. That is all they gave them. [Laughter.]
We are in a new era all together. Six years down the democracy line, we are talking about the transformation of the entire fortunes of the SA Police, including the manner of investigation and docketing. That is why we have the secretariat and the Independent Complaints Directorate today. It is because of the demands of the objective scientific situation in which we find ourselves today.
Numbers are not an issue. At any rate, even if we were to take the issue of numbers into account and project it to the fore, which is the NP's main obsession, South Africa is still fairing and comparing very well. We saw the statistics at our Minmec meeting which indicate the ratio of one police officer per the number of people in other countries and in South Africa. We are doing pretty well in so far as those numbers are concerned. We are going to strive to stabilise the SA Police Service at around 127 000 members, and there it shall remain. What we are going to do is step up the scientific and technological advancement of the members of the SA Police Service.
Unlike the Western Cape MEC, we rely on people, just like the MEC from Gauteng and, of course, other MECs. Even if he had a million men and women to police the Western Cape, he would still contend with the problem of crime, as long as he is not mobilising the one major resource against crime, and that is the people of this province. The MEC does not have the capacity to mobilise them because he has antagonised them for a long time. He cannot go to Langa, Khayelitsha, or Mitchells Plain and mobilise those people, because his party is a skunk, it smells, and it is repugnant in the nostrils of the people of the Western Cape. [Laughter.] That is why he cannot place any reliance on mass mobilisation against crime. He cannot do that which is an open sesame to a successful vanquishing of crime.
He should mobilise the people and the schoolchildren against drugs. He should mobilise the communities against buying stolen goods and thereby turning themselves into lucrative markets for thieves. He should mobilise the people. However, it is not in the NP's nature as a political party to mobilise the people. He should just forget about it.
Furthermore, even his friend is poaching their people. He is gone now. [Laughter.] [Interjections.] Oh! there he is. He belongs to the DP which has become the dumping pit for all elements that cannot accept change or transformation in this country. [Laughter.] They find their way into the DP, which is an abbreviation for dumping pit. [Laughter.] He is making a statement ...