Police Minister urges all role-players to collaborate in fighting crime
The minister blamed the rise in crime on corruption, saying corruption impairs government’s ability to render good services to the public, resulting in communities rising against government and committing crimes such as malicious damage to property during protests.
Police Minister Bheki Cele told delegates at the summit on Crime and Violence Prevention that solving the high levels of crime in the country should not be left in the hands of the police alone.
Cele made the remarks at the opening of the two-day summit on crime prevention, which was held at the Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre in Boksburg on September 13 and 14.
Addressing the crowd during the summit on Thursday, Cele said the best way of dealing with the skyrocketing rates of crime in the country is working in collaboration with the other government departments, the public sector and communities.
Cele said police are constantly fighting battles that are not theirs as a result of poor service delivery by some municipalities with people who misuse government money.
“In North West we spent so much money, and even brought police officers from all over to fight battles for people that ‘chow’ government money,” said Cele.
He said whenever people rise against poor service delivery, the police found themselves in the firing line and are often accused of brutality when fighting those battles that are not theirs.
“Most of the time as people rise their reasons of rising against poor service delivery are genuine, but who is in the firing line? The police.
“To help address the situation of crime in South Africa, everybody at their workstation must do their work. I’m sure if every councillor, every mayor, every municipal manager, every teacher and every nurse can do his or her work, there will be no uprising and there will be less crime,”
“We have corruption as a disease. Nobody can deny that some of us in South Africa are corrupt, and if we do not fix it then we are not going to fix the lives of the people,” he said.
The Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance Andries Nel echoed the words of Cele and called on all municipalities to fight corruption, deliver good services to communities and work together with national government to address all the social and environmental issues that are seen to be contributing factors to crime in their respective areas.
Minister of Social Development Suzan Shabangu and MMC for Community Safety Vivian Chauke were among the guest speakers at the opening of the summit on Thursday. German also sent a team of delegates which actively participated in this summit.
The summit comes after the minister of police released the crime stats on Tuesday which revealed the soaring levels of serious crimes in the country.
The summit, held under the theme “Building safer communities through an integrated, developmental approach to crime and violence prevention”, was aimed at creating a joint vision on safety and provided a platform for experts to discuss the 2016 White Paper on Safety and Security.
“It is also aimed at developing consensus on the role of government‚ civil society‚ private sector and communities in promoting safety outcomes‚ facilitating the establishment of institutional mechanisms for the implementation of the White Paper on Safety and Security as well as building networks and encouraging collaboration and co-production of community safety initiatives‚”
The White Paper on Safety and Security‚ adopted by Cabinet in April 2016‚ was aimed at addressing crime and violence proactively and promoting an integrated approach to safety.
“The White Paper proposes a ‘whole of government and whole of society’ approach for successful implementation‚ and will require the different spheres of government to work together to align and amend existing strategies and plans to address how they will contribute to safety.
“These respective plans will be coordinated and monitored through an integrated strategy‚ which provides a framework for the implementation of the White Paper,” the police said.
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