The Democratic Alliance is to invoke the Promotion of Access to Information Act in an attempt to force Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula to reveal how many police officers have been killed this year.
Nqakula left for Burundi on Tuesday to continue facilitating the peace deal there ”at a time when armed criminals are waging a war of their own against police and innocent civilians at home”, DA spokesperson Roy Jankielsohn said.
”He also leaves behind a public that remain in the dark about crime and have no idea what his plans to fight crime are, and indeed, whether he even has any.”
The Jeppestown massacre last week and the killing of another police officer in Lenasia on Monday had shaken the public’s confidence.
”While the dedication of individual police officers is not in question, it is clear that the police are under-resourced and that some police officers are under-trained to cope with certain situations,” Jankielsohn said.
The police had so far refused to divulge the number of police deaths this year, citing the moratorium on crime statistics.
”This is not good enough. The public have a right to know the state of the police force and, for that matter, where, when and how many violent crimes are taking place in South Africa.”
It was known that 19 police officers have been killed in Gauteng so far this year compared with 23 for the whole of 2005.
In 2005, 91 police officials were killed — 33 while on duty and 58 off duty, and in 2004, 107 police officials were murdered — 40 while on duty and 67 off duty.
It is in the public interest to know how many police officers have been killed so far this year for the whole country and the DA is therefore invoking the Act to get these figures.
”It is time to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding crime and the state’s response to it. The DA will do everything in its power to force the minister to do so,” Jankielsohn said.
‘Fight against crime is a public issue’
On Tuesday, the DA demanded that Nqakula and the national commissioner of police immediately make public the broad topics for discussion at their meetings and what steps they envisage in the fight against crime.
”Another police officer has been shot, but still the minister refuses to announce his plans to beat crime, saying that yesterday’s [Monday] meeting with police bosses was ‘off limits’ to the media.
”This is absolute nonsense. Public servants are being murdered and the public have a right to know what the minister plans to do about it,” Jankielsohn said.
The official opposition said that the democratic principle of transparency and accountability is being subverted by the ministry’s secrecy and silence.
”The fight against crime is a public issue, not a private matter between politicians and the top brass of the police. The minister’s moratorium on crime statistics is a classic example of the minister’s willingness to withhold crucial crime-related information from the public,” the DA said.
With government failing to meet its own targets of bringing down contact crimes by between 7% and 10% annually, South Africa needs more from the minister than a ”cops will shoot anyone who points a gun at them” statement, the DA asserted.
Anger and indignation
Early in June, a wave of anger and indignation met remarks by Nqakula that ”constant moaners” about crime should rather leave the country.
Nqakula’s attack on those complaining about the crime rate came during debate on his Budget vote in Parliament.
He said: ”They can continue to whinge until they’re blue in the face … be as negative as they want to, or they can simply leave this country so that all of the peace-loving South Africans, good South African people who want to make this a successful country, can continue with their work.”
Jankielsohn at the time demanded an apology from Nqakula. He said by the minister’s own statistics, every day 51 South Africans are murdered, 151 rapes are reported by women and children and 347 armed robberies take place.
”The minister is clearly out of touch with the feelings of ordinary South Africans, perhaps because he rarely visits victims of crime and is protected by VIP security,” Jankielsohn said.
The truth is that South Africans — black and white — are angry about the high crime rate and justifiably feel that the state is not protecting them.
”The people of South Africa deserve an apology from the minister and an undertaking that he will put all his efforts into tackling crime,” Jankielsohn said at the time. –Sapa and I-Net Bridge