It is our department's policy to release crime statistics annually for all levels of policing before the end of September of the financial year, following the year of release. The last crime statistics, therefore, were released in September last year as part of the SA Police Service's annual report.
This department's performance is assessed against quarterly reports to the National Treasury. The targets set for crime reduction are already a common cause. To repeat, the police are expected to reduce serious and violent crimes by between 7% and 10% annually until 2014. Those serious and violent crimes include murder, attempted murder, rape, indecent assault, assault, serious assault and common assault, aggravated robbery and common robbery. While no target has been set for the other categories of crime, the reduction of crime is part of the mandate of SAPS to prevent and combat crime. To that extent, therefore, the police are determined to reduce the levels of all crime, as has been happening since 1995, when the SAPS was established.
There's a question about stepping down and I want to say that I've responded to that question in the past, hon member, and I'm not going to repeat myself. I'm inviting you, therefore, hon member, to go to Hansard and that's where you'll get the answer.
The hon member knows that we are transparent. We publish an annual report on the activities of the SAPS, including crime prevention and crime- combating activities. And statistics are part and parcel of that report. That is being transparent. There are many countries in the world that embraced democracy much earlier than we did but which do not publish statistics.