It is time for govt to put the people first

Up to 21,000 people are murdered in South Africa in one year. That’s 57 people a day. That figure is no longer shocking for most citizens, it’s a figure that’s thrown around each time the national crime stats are released.

Like a frog in a pot whose temperature is being slowly increased, most people’s sense of outrage has been decreased and they have become desensitised to this outrageous situation.

But it gets worse: less than 20% of the estimated 21,000 cases of murder committed in the country annually end up in court.

Simply put, 17,000 of the people who get murdered in SA do not get justice. In 2014, Orlando Pirates and South African national team goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was one of the 20,000 lives lost to murder. His case was also one of the 17,000 that did not see the inside of the courtroom. Well, until now.

AfriForum has now teamed up with the Meyiwa family to help get them closure. It needs to be noted that AfriForum is an overwhelmingly white civil society body whose track record has been to look after the interests of its members.

It is a body that, for all intents and purposes, should not exist in a democratic SA, or at the least, should be rendered irrelevant by a normal functioning government that looks after the interests of all citizens.

But government has left massive gaps for groups like AfriForum to fill and, as is the case now with the Senzo Meyiwa situation, stand to embarrass those in positions of power.

It is sad to have to remind South Africans that Senzo, once murdered, only became a statistic due to police ineptitude. His case became tabloid fodder because there is a celebrity girlfriend involved in the form of Kelly Khumalo and alleged drugs, among other things.

Add an alleged cover-up to the mix and the alleged involvement of the son of music mogul Sello Twala, and it becomes messy.

The truth is that had the police done the initial investigations like they were supposed to, had they been the professionals that they are supposed to be and had they carried out their duties as is required of them, there would be no need for the Meyiwa family to turn to AfriForum and cause potential “embarrassment” to the government and its police service.

The wider population feels the pain worse because they ask themselves that question: “If this unfairness can be done to a national icon like Senzo Meyiwa and his family, what chance do I stand in getting justice for my own family?”

Every year, 17,000 families find themselves in the same position that the Meyiwa family finds itself in: with a loved one who has lost a life to murder and with no prospect that their case will ever get to court.

Whatever AfriForum’s motives in taking up a few select high-profile cases and searching for justice for the families or individuals, they must be applauded. It is the embarrassment caused by a civil body with unusually narrow interests that must drive the authorities to start doing what they have been sloganeering about for over two decades: batho pele (people first).

If the ruling party really cares about all people of SA, they will heed the warning that AfriForum is giving them. It should never be about how those in power are made to look, it must always be about putting the people first.

Sydney Majoko.

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