Simon Nare
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu cannot say with certainty or confidence whether the crime situation in South Africa is under control or not but on the same breath, he cannot say if it is really out of control.
Mchunu said this while briefing the media at the ANC’s Lekgotla at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg outside Johannesburg on Tuesday.
But he acknowledged that as police they should inspire confidence and be able to say unequivocally what the state of crime was in the country. But sadly he admitted that the police are not sure about the state of crime in South Africa.
“Our response was, the current situation is not out of control but we were also saying it is not really under control but it is somewhere in between and that is our worry because we should be saying outright and with confidence that the situation was under control,” he said.
Mchunu said among the high crimes committed in the country murder, illegal and legal firearms as well as drugs, were at the top of the list.
He has called for the review of the police budget with a view to increase it so as to strengthen crime intelligence gathering while admitting there was a very low detection rate of criminal activities in the country and this was owing to weak intelligence gathering.
“But, of course we know as we are sitting here that we have a challenge of low detection rate. For that reason we have identified that we need to strengthen crime intelligence,” said the minister.
For that to happen the police budget will have to be reviewed and in order for law enforcement to strengthen their capacity on that front, he said
The minister said drug trafficking was rampant in the country and these drugs were being brought in the country by individuals.
There was also the issue of undocumented and illegal foreigners who cannot be detected by the system and were involved in kidnapping and extorting people’s money.
Mchunu defended the police for harshly dealing with criminals, saying in some quarters, police were being labelled trigger-happy and argued that thugs were not being labelled as such.
He said it could not be that police are being criticized for not decisively dealing with criminals and when they do, they are then called trigger-happy. He said police needed to defend themselves against criminals and warned that anyone who points a gun at a police officer should not expect any mercy.
Mchunu also touched on the construction mafia and encouraged those who were being victimised to report the crime so that the police are able to take action.
“So, we want authorities to open up cases so that we can follow up but it is a type of corruption. It is just as corrupt as those other trends that are called protection fees,” he said.
INSIDE POLITICS
