Chairperson, the ACDP is concerned about the conviction rate that is so low in our country. One of the reasons is poor training that leads to poor investigations. Corruption in the police negatively affects the morale of those officers who are committed to protecting our people and doing their best to making our streets safer. Hon Minister, I therefore plead with you to root out criminals and corrupt officers in police uniform.
The ACDP is also concerned about the increasing number of police officers who are killed by criminals, some of whom dressed in police uniform. The killing of Maj Gen Tirhani Maswanganyi last year is even more worrying, because some corrupt police officers have allegedly been implicated in his assassination. It was reported that the late Maj Gen Maswanganyi, who was a trusted and known corruption buster, was busy investigating cases involving corrupt police officers before he was killed. The man who pleaded guilty to killing this hero and great example in the community has implicated police officers who are reported to have been plotting to kill even the investigators probing Maswanganyi's death. Hon Minister, please do not allow an undesirable new culture to develop, where detectives and investigators would need protection from corrupt police officers in the SAPS itself.
The ACDP says that all criminals in police uniform should be purged. There should be no mercy for police officers who commit serious crimes, which include colluding with criminals against their own colleagues. What an indictment when a columnist says:
When I am driving at night and see those flashing blue lights, a fist of fear tightens around my gut ... the SAPS brand has been irreparably damaged, for me. The trust is gone, and now I look at the police and the criminals and wonder if there is any difference. Apart, that is, from the fact that some of them happen to wear a uniform.
How will community members, who are always asked to work with the police, know how to differentiate between a genuine police officer and a police officer who is a criminal? My plea and my call to the hon Minister is to please clean up the SAPS to ensure that trust in the police by members of the community can be restored and can grow because the police are not involved in any acts of criminality.
Many of today's newspapers have as their main articles stories of car hijackings involving children and also stories of rape. The most tragic story is about a hijacking that took place in Reiger Park this past weekend, where hijackers drove off with a four-year-old boy dangling from his mother's car as his foot was trapped in a seatbelt. The hijacked car was found abandoned one and a half hours later 4 km down the road and the innocent child dead next to the car. The ACDP wants to convey its deepest sympathy to Taegrin's parents, Chantel and Elwin Morris, as well as all their relatives and friends. Thank you.