DA must step up on police funding issues

We wonder if members of the national Public Order Police unit, based in Pretoria, take comfort in the fact that their political boss, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, has a R2 billion budget for VIP protection… while they don’t have vehicles to do their jobs.

In a country where there are many protests – of all shades, often violent – we would have thought the work of this police unit was crucial to the peaceful functioning of a democratic state.

Even if the country is entirely quiet, these cops told us their secondary task is crime prevention. Can we have too much of that?

The example of the public order police unit is, sadly, merely another in a long list of key government departments which have been allowed to slide slowly and inexorably into a dysfunctional state because there is not enough money.

The reality is – and ask any taxpayer to confirm this – that there is plenty of money. It is not getting to where it should because it is being looted and misspent by our government and its accomplices.

ALSO READ: Breakthrough as police arrest suspect in Harrismith mother-son shooting

And here’s another uncomfortable reality – the new kids on the government political block, the parties in the government of national unity (GNU), can no longer attack the ANC for this state of affairs.

You’re all in this together, now, people. You’re all guilty.

Which leads to an important question for the likes of the DA: what are you doing about it? We realise that policing is not your portfolio but, in the short time the GNU has been around, your people have been able to make some changes.

So, why not bang the table in Cabinet meetings about police funding?

Ultimately, though, perhaps it suits the ANC not to have too much law and order, because it won’t be able to bleat about its “challenges”.

NOW READ: Dean Macpherson defends tender investigation as EFF pursue charges