Only in SA can gangsters flourish

Everything in South Africa appears to be heading downhill – except organised crime, which is booming, both figuratively and literally. And there’s no sign of its exponential growth slowing down.

According to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, organised crime is an existential threat to South Africa’s democratic institutions, economy and people.

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The acceleration into a fully fledged gangster state began during the Jacob Zuma years, when state capture reset the moral compasses of many in the ruling party, their families and sundry hangers-on. The situation is appalling.

Since January, there have been 249 CIT robberies, a 30% increase from the same period last year.

In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, there were 15 343 kidnappings. The rising phenomenon of the “construction mafia”, who invade construction sites, intimidate and disrupt the delivery of projects resulted in 605 cases.

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The South African Police Service (Saps) has 190 000 employees and despite its budget going up by 86% since 2012, its ability to solve crime dropped considerably.

Its ability to solve murders has dropped by 55% since 2019, while its ability to solve armed robberies has dropped by 53% and its ability to solve total violent crime dropped by about 25%.

In any other democracy, the situation would be cause for more than alarm, it would see the declaration of a national state of emergency… and the heads would roll of those responsible. In most other countries, the political party responsible would be voted out at the next election.

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Yet… this is South Africa. Our police minister will continue to wear his hats and make silly comments. We might throw a few billion rands at a commission of inquiry, which will take five years to tell us what we already know – the criminals run our country. And the ANC will be voted in again.