The time has come for the Congress of South African Trade Unions to play a much more active role in the fight against crime, its general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Friday.
”The nature of the capitalist society… [is that] it breeds corruption, criminality, and immorality,” he told a Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) conference in Johannesburg.
”There is only one real, sustainable way of fighting crime and that is when we defeat unemployment, poverty, and inequality.”
However, Cosatu could not afford to sit idle while society was threatened by ”heartless” gangs and individuals who caused ”so much pain”.
It was with this in mind that Cosatu had resolved to meet with Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula and National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi.
They would look at ”what should be the role of organised labour in assisting the government in defeating the scourge of criminality in society”, Vavi said.
Selebi earlier told the conference his biggest problem was ”the safety of human beings; contact crimes”.
He was interested in reducing the number of deaths, rapes, attempted murders and assaults. ”Those kinds of things are primary to me.”
”Our murders are too high, because crime in South Africa is violent. It’s an intolerant society we have. You can get killed by somebody simply [for] looking at him.”
However, Selebi said commentators were wrong when they described crime as out of hand.
”It has not gone out of hand. They are very wrong,” he said.
”It is still high, but it’s lower than when we hosted the Rugby World Cup. It remains high. Yes. It is an issue we need to address.”
The restructuring of the South African Police Service (SAPS) — to strengthen police stations — was intended to ”achieve the protection of the people of South Africa”, he said.
It was not defined by any one incident — such as the shooting at Jeppestown in which four policemen died — but by the police’s need to better serve the public.
”We are doing all these things because we want to be a more effective and efficient organisation .
”And this is something that I am convinced is right. It is something I am convinced we should be able to support.”
Selebi said the SAPS had to build an alliance with South Africans and the only way to do that was to give them good service.
”I must be able to say to these people: ‘Tonight you can sleep sure that nobody’s going to do this and that.”’
He said the SAPS was in discussions with ”other roleplayers” to ensure all law enforcement agencies talked and co-ordinated with each other, and had the same rules and standards so there was ”one line of command”. – Sapa