Chairperson, Minister and Deputy Minister of Police, Chairperson of the Select Committee on Security and Constitutional Development, my colleague, the Gauteng MEC for community safety, members of the legislature in Gauteng, hon Members of Parliament, SAPS management, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I want to start off by saying that I concur with the Minister on the wonderful job that the SAPS did over the elections. I went around to many voting stations and the SAPS had done a phenomenonal job, and I think we need to commend them. [Applause.]
In the same breath, I think we also need to say the big challenge is that post-election violence is flaring up. I have seen how, in the Plettenberg Bay area, where the mayoral candidate for the DA, Mr Memory Booysen, who was victorious in that area, was hunted out of his house allegedly by upset ANC supporters.
I think we need to get a culture into our electorate of respecting the results of the elections. We are not in Burkina Faso or any other country; we are in South Africa, where we have a democratic electoral system. I need to just say that we need to get our police to ensure that the safety of everyone is respected and secured in those places.
Madam Chair and hon Minister, I wish to express my utmost sadness and deep regret at the spate of police murders in both KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape in the past few days. The high number of police deaths is cause for great concern and must be addressed without delay.
The Police Service has a constitutional responsibility to combat, prevent and investigate crime; to maintain public order; protect and secure the inhabitants of the Republic as well as their property; and to uphold and enforce the law.
This is a fundamental role, and so many men and women in blue take up this fight every day. Very often they perform thankless duties while their families do not know whether they are going to return home that night or the following morning. Too many police officers have given their lives in fighting crime.
Last year, 88 police officers died in the line of duty. This past weekend, Warrant Officer Matthee and student Constable Cloete were shot dead in Cape Town. Captain Sydney Bongani Hlengwa and Constable Zamikhaya Patrick Hlangulela were killed in KwaZulu-Natal. This is completely unacceptable. I think the nation should take a stand against this.
The killing of police officers is totally unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest terms. It not only points to a breakdown in respect for this profession, but it also shows the lengths to which criminals will go to perpetrate their crimes. An attack on police officers is a direct attack on the state and on law and order. I think we must start saying it like that and actually charge them with sabotage or something.
I must however stress that each police officer and each and every person murdered in our country is a cause for serious concern. The perpetrators of all of these crimes must be brought to book and we must secure convictions in these cases.
Crime is a scourge, and South Africa is particularly hard hit by crime and violence. Safety is important to all of us because it lays the foundations for growth and job creation - as the hon President has requested that we need to create jobs. Safety allows our children to learn at schools free from fear. And safety is fundamental to our citizens' wellness so that they can play an active role in the economy and thereby alleviate poverty. Making South Africa safer is a top priority, as safety impacts on so many of the things that we aim to achieve. This is most likely the reason the SAPS received such a substantial and ever-increasing budget allocation.
The police budget has tripled in the past decade. The budget for the 2011- 12 financial year roughly translates to R160 million per day. South Africans spend close to R5 billion every month on the police. Even after the reported 7% decrease in the national murder rate last year, South Africa sadly ranks high on the list of murder rates per capita.
It is vital therefore that we ensure that these vast sums are properly utilised to resource and capacitate the SAPS. We must ensure that no cent is wasted and that no effort is misspent in the fight against crime. This is why oversight is so important.
The Constitution provides for various oversight mechanisms. Provincial governments have a duty to exercise oversight, to ensure accountability and to ensure that the police act appropriately and efficiently and deliver services to the people of South Africa in the fight against crime.
I have visited many police stations in the Western Cape. Time and time again the complaints from communities, community police forums, and from police officers themselves relate to lack of resources. For example, I cannot remember a single station that has not mentioned lack of vehicles as a major concern. The police must be properly resourced and trained if they are to function successfully and really address crime.
The Police, however, are not alone in their fight. As Minister Mthethwa stated in his speech in Parliament a month ago, the police are and always must be subjected to the will of the people they serve. This implies reciprocity between communities and police. Safety is not the concern of the police officers alone, ladies and gentlemen.
Communities have an important role to play in increasing safety - from CPFs to neighbourhood watches, local churches, mosques, school committees, sports organisations, and to town councils who put up lights in particular areas. They must all play a role and remove opportunities for crime. Schools that act as Mass Participation, Opportunity and Access, Development and Growth, MOD, centres - those are centres that help with afternoon activities for children - should remove the motivation for children to become victims of or participants in crime.
There are many elements in civil and public society that can contribute to making our spaces safer. We need to ensure that the potential of the whole society is drawn on in order to identify opportunities to beat crime and then structured to prevent violence and address the root causes of crime. In this regard, economic development must happen. We must create jobs. It is not only the police, but also communities, the private sector, mothers, hospitals, schools and even the elderly that are role-players in a safety solution.
As part of the provincial executive, we are tasked with promoting good relations between the police and communities, as are the community police forums. Good relations are needed in order for information to flow from communities to police. They are needed to generate a healthy respect for the work of the Police Service.
Good relations are needed so that the police can support community safety initiatives. And so, if communities have information about drug lords let there be a safe line to the police so that the police can act on it. The community should not have to become worried whether they are going to be victimised by the drug lords or that someone in the police stations will take the information back.
Neighbourhood watches and CPFs have an important participatory role in the whole of society approach. These organisations are important safety partners in bringing the police and communities together and in fostering good relations between the two.
Organisations such as the CPFs need to be strengthened and capacitated so that they can perform their legal mandate of civilian oversight of the police and form the link between the police and the community in which they operate. We rarely hear that CPFs are having community meetings where they report on the claims of crime in that community. We rarely hear that community police forums are creating youth programmes for our children as an alternative to gangsterism. We rarely hear that our CPFs get engaged with civil society formations, such as churches, mosques and schools to identify the problems of crime in those communities.
I am sure that safety can only be achieved through collective effort and public investment. [Interjections.] We now need to harness these opportunities to make our country safer, so that we can build a society in which we are free from the fear that is caused by crime.