MINISTER SAYS COPS AREN'T UP TO IT

On a personal level, I agree with all that is being said here - however I would like to add that a lot more training should also be thrown into the mix. It is all very well to throw manpower at the situation, but throwing manpower that doesn't have a clue will be detrimental to the situation.

Minister says cops aren't up to it
Christelle Terreblanche
February 18 2007 at 04:57PM

Many police are not up to the job and the police's management is inadequate, Charles Nqakula, the safety and security minister, has confessed. "We must admit that we have not always been astute when it comes to human capital," he said. "The reason is we have looked at people with skills but they were often deployed in positions where they did not fit. They failed. "These admissions of weaknesses in the fight against crime came at the end of a week in which President Thabo Mbeki, government ministers and ANC MPs hit back at those who had accused them of not caring about the victims of crime.

Crime predictably dominated this week's debate on Mbeki's tenth state of the nation speech. The president, ANC MPs and ministers all stressed the link between high crime levels and poverty. Opposition parties made a meal of the controversy though some, such as the Independent Democrats, seemed satisfied with the government's response to the attacks made on it over crime. After the parliamentary debate, Nqakula told the media that the government had never denied that crime levels were high, but he maintained that it was making headway in curbing crime."The question is whether the massive resources [allocated to the fight against crime] are being used effectively," he said.

The minister, who heads the cabinet's crime cluster, admitted that the police's management was weak and that "command and control systems were not as effective as they should be". "Some station commissioners do not know how to deploy the resources available to them," said Nqakula, announcing a raft of new measures to eradicate shortcomings. Mbeki has acknowledged that the reduction of violent crime is not happening fast enough - about 50 people are murdered every day in South Africa - and the abuse of women and children has "continued at an unacceptable level".

As 32 000 letters complaining about crime were being delivered to the Union Buildings, the underlying message from the ruling party was clear - people who "whinge" about crime are not concerned about its causes and should either make a contribution or ship out. In the debate on his state of the nation speech, Mbeki quoted Mosiuoa Lekota, the defence minister, who had said that many of the government's critics on crime were "eloquent spectators speaking from the exaggerated comfort of European cities".

The president described the critics as "forever mocking, forever throwing our inevitable temporary failures at our faces". Lekota's subsequent statement that the critics "should go to Australia" has raised the ire of both the Democratic Alliance and Freedom Front, who have called the remarks racist. But Idasa analyst Steven Friedman said Mbeki's response was appropriate "given the context of a torrent of abuse by a bunch of fairly well-heeled people" over crime. "If we are going to have one have intelligent debate in this country on crime, it needs to be around the fact that crime is disproportionately distributed among the poor, who include by far the most victims," he said. "I wish the president had responded like this before."Mbeki has promised that police numbers will be raised to 183 000, a 50 percent increase in seven years, by 2009.

The budget for safety and security will be increased by 600 percent compared to 1994. Johan Burger, of the Institute for Security Studies, warned that international experience showed that throwing more police at the problem would not do the trick. He agreed that a lack of visible policing had more to do with poor management. Burger, whose book on crime and poverty will be published this week, said that South Africa had one of the highest ratios of police to civilians in the world. He praised Mbeki for being "one of the few people who understood the complexities of crime", including the contributions to it of poverty and related socio-economic problems.

"At the moment, a large part of our crime is generated by socio-economic conditions that are largely unattended to, but the focus is on crime," said Burger. He said that short-term crime-busting actions would not work either."It says clearly in the government's own white papers that crime and its causes are now considered a national security threat." He suggested better co-ordination of old and new initiatives to counter poverty and crime."[Crime fighting] must be based on one single national strategy controlled by a body of people who can hold accountable all the departments involved." In the parliamentary debate, Mbeki took up a suggestion by the United Democratic Movement's Bantu Holomisa that a "national convention" be established in which the people could put burning issues onto the government's agenda and make resolutions.

Mbeki suggested that if parliament took the lead in the convention's formation and asked him to suggest topics for its consideration he would include social transformation, the eradication of poverty and the "reduction and eradication of crime". Nqakula warned: "Even if the entire number of policemen were deployed [183 000], it would not be enough to cover all areas. The call for the mobilisation of our masses [against crime] is not abdicating our responsibilities. Given that crime happens at a local level, and that the communities know the criminals and are affected by the crime, it is important to join hands [with the communities].

"The legislation on community policing forums is to be changed to strengthen the forums, provide for better oversight of the police and to improve the way in which policing priorities are jointly determined by the police and the local community. Nqakula pledged beefed-up police deployment and management, including electronic monitoring of police stations. He said specialised units had been deployed to the areas worst hit by violent crime. He said cash-in-transit robberies had fallen by nearly 25 percent in six months because of a high-tech police operation.

Former members of commando units are to be taken on as police reservists.
published on page 4 of The Sunday Independent on February 18, 2007
This article was originally published on page 4 of Sunday Independent on February 18, 2007