Vigilantism cannot be tolerated – Premier’s message

KZN Premier Senzo Mchunu, MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison Willies Mchunu, and the Provincial Deputy Commissioner of Police Maj-Gen Jula, launched the crime-fighting organisation, the KZN Community Crime Prevention Association (KZNCCPA), in Dundee  on Saturday.
A large crowd had been bussed in from the surrounding areas and a marquee put up on the Oval sports field.
Speaking at the launch MEC Mchunu said the KZNCCPA ‘should tighten their hands when catching criminals, so that if they manage to free themselves they should run straight to the back of the police van’.
He urged all community members to be actively involved in the fight against crime in the province.
He said crime statistics had dropped drastically since the KZNCCPAs had started working for the fight against crime in their respective areas.
These organisations were independently involved in crime fighting, and at times were at loggerheads with the police as they took the law into their own hands by assaulting suspects.

Painstaking efforts

MEC Mchunu said it had taken painstaking efforts to convince both this organistion and the government to partner together in the fight against crime.
The body currently has 14 organisations, which are active in crime fighting with some focusing of anti-stock theft initiatives.
The organistion has added  significant muscle in the battle against crime, with stock-theft having declined by seven percent since they came into being.
Premier Senzo Mchunu told the crowd that the province should now focus on the eradication of crime and killings in order to lay the ground for economic development and entrench the culture of peaceful co-existence.
Premier Mchunu said, with the almost total eradication of political violence in KZN, there was now no justification or any excuse for the killings, including those of commercial farmers.
“We have now successfully dealt with political violence, so no one should try to use the excuse of politics to kill or rob people,” he said. “We are now stable. It is clear to us that eradicating criminality and killings will give us an ample time to concentrate on developing our own economy and creating jobs.
“The atmosphere of peaceful co-existence is critical for economic development,” Premier Mchunu said.
He described the new association as a ‘shield’ for the community against crime and criminality.
Earlier, Tim Ralph of Estcourt, speaking in Zulu on behalf of the KZN Farmers’ Association, warned that ‘people should not be happy when their kraals are full of stolen cattle’. He called on people to curb alcohol abuse in an effort to stamp out crime. Drunkeness often leads to crime, he said.
* While the Premier was strong on crime, those attending were not big on environmental concerns – a mass of discarded food containers and other litter  filled the Oval and the adjacent parking lot oppposite Dundee Juinor, and by Tuesday it had still not been cleared.