Criminals have been taught by our MPs that crime pays

Law and order has died in SA and the scale of criminality is devastating the citizens and the country, causing irreparable reputational damage.

Our latest crime statistics show that we are going from bad to worse. South Africans are living under siege as criminals control and dominate our daily lives with absolute impunity.

Mass shootings, farm attacks, spiking on highways, murders, rapes, farms and crops set alight, car hijackings and the acts by zama zamas, to name a few, are daily occurrences.

Astonishingly, even police vehicles are being hijacked. SA has become a bloodbath and yet, no decisive action is taken to stop the scourge of the violent crime that has engulfed us.

Social media is awash with running gun battles in streets, armed robberies at filling stations, ATMs and even homes.

On the rare occasions when arrests are carried out, dockets go missing, prisoners “escape” or bribes are paid, prison sentences are laughable and the criminals continue their unrelenting crime spree.

In some instances, the few violent criminals who are apprehended are released on a paltry bail. Our country has become a cesspool of uncontrolled anarchy and increasingly violent criminality.

Apart from the cheap platitudes government offers, one might be forgiven to think they approve of the lawlessness we are experiencing.

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After all, criminals have been taught by our politicians that crime pays. It is so bad that we frequently feature in overseas newspapers and on television – and seldom in a flattering way.

It is highly unlikely that this slap in the face bothers our elitist ministers. Perhaps they revel in our lawlessness, the failed state we have become and the misery they have caused all of the country’s citizens.

The manner in which law and order is applied by the police and adhered to and respected by the citizens provides a window into the type of society it is – and it is apparent that we have become a terminally ill society.

Indeed, law and order is very absent in most of the country. And there appears to be no government determination or plan to fix the mess they have created for us to live in.

What apparently upsets certain spineless government ministers is that communities of all races and religions are willing to band together to stop crime.

Vigilante groups are establishing themselves and arming themselves with illegal weapons as citizens are increasingly disarmed by the Honourable Minister.

This has the potential to become explosive. It has also forced disarmed legal gun owners to become illegal armed gun owners.

Not content to conduct just wanton anarchy and extremely violent crimes because no one is willing to stop them, criminals have now even started occupying homes and taking them over.

They carry out these actions because they know they can – making it more difficult to eject or stop them. According to the latest crime statistics, three murders are committed every hour, averaging at 2 141 murders a month.

Whereas statistics have great value, they also show us where we have deficiencies and we certainly have grave deficiencies when it comes to law and order.

Being aware of deficiencies serves no purpose if nothing is done to restore the deficiencies. The drive by the government to disarm law-abiding citizens and make them vulnerable to armed criminal attacks and gangs is in contrast with the apparent blind eye to allow criminals to arm themselves and act with impunity.

As I have frequently written, this is worse than the deaths in many war-torn or conflict countries. The great irony regarding our country is that when rebels in a conflict kill 10 people in a day, the world reacts with shock and horror.

When criminals kill 71 people a day in our country, the silence is deafening. It was recently reported that the deaths by murder over a period of three months in South Africa exceeds six months of deaths in war-torn Ukraine.

Perhaps the government should consider abolishing the post of “Minister of Police” as it has become a standing joke in the communities because there is no real policing or law and order.

We might as well also appoint a “Minister of Space Travel” as both will bring us no advantages, while costing the country and taxpayers money we can ill afford.

Although there are law enforcement officers who are desperately trying to stem the tide of crime, they are outnumbered by those who joined the police as it was just another “job”, or where they could practise the dark arts of crime.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana recently called for significant capital investments to stimulate economic growth and reduce unemployment and poverty. In a country where law and order has been slowly killed off by the government, it is unlikely many will heed his call.

-Mashaba is a political advisor