The ruling African National Congress (ANC) on Monday affirmed its commitment to the fight against crime, poverty and unemployment in the country.
Speaking to the media in the wake of the party’s national executive committee (NEC) lekgotla (meeting) that took place over the weekend, ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said there needs to be ”unity and purpose” in the fight against crime.
Emphasising the importance of local government, Ngonyama said that all the branches of the ANC should stand together in facing the challenges to safety and security. He added that it is the responsibility of all citizens to get involved in easing the problems the country faces, emphasising the need for ”cohesion”.
Ngonyama said it was ”easy to talk from the mountain tops”, criticising the police and complaining about the issues that face us. He said that people should get involved on a local and street level in order for the poverty and crime situations to improve.
”Let us not become spectators when the police are doing their work. We call for the full participation of every person,” Ngonyama said.
Ngonyama said the ANC will launch a mass-mobilisation campaign to ensure community involvement in the building of safer and more stable families and societies.
”This campaign will focus on the reinvigoration of community policing forums as effective and credible sites for coordination, monitoring and popular participation,” Ngonyama said. It will also include practical action to demonstrate support for the police.
Responding to a question about how the ANC saw crime in country following President Thabo Mbeki’s statement that it was not out of control, Ngonyama said: ”Every South African must be safe; that is what we are striving for, there are no polemics about that.”
Highlighting the resolutions that emerged from the lekgotla, Ngonyama also declared 2007 the year to intensify the struggle against poverty, adding that everyone should work together to ”push back the frontiers of poverty”.
He also said the party’s task of enhancing its campaigns to half unemployment by 2014 is still a core priority.
The establishment of a broad front for development was underlined as another primary task for the year ahead. The lekgotla emphasised the full participation of all stakeholders in the areas of development, poverty and unemployment, and all factions, including other political parties, are invited to be a part of the initiative.
Ngonyama said the broad front will draw on the experiences of similar past initiatives that were critical in the fight against apartheid. He said it is the government’s mandate to provide basic needs for its people, but added that the establishment of this broad front will ”assist and … give reinforcements to the efforts of the government”.
”This broad front would seek to harness the energies and efforts of a broad range of groupings and sectors behind a minimum programme of poverty alleviation and social development,” Ngonyama said.
Other issues discussed at the lekgotla included improved governance and administration, the implementation of the accelerated shared growth initiative, building safer communities, contributing to a better Africa and world and a review of the party’s future strategies and tactics in anticipation of its 52nd national conference in December.
The ANC’s annual lekgotla was held in Ekurhuleni and included NEC members, representatives of alliance partners and ANC staff.
Pessimistic
South Africans are increasingly pessimistic about the government’s ability to tackle the country’s crippling crime rates, a survey released last Thursday in Johannesburg showed.
The biannual Government Performance Barometer report published by the Markinor research company among 3 500 respondents showed 40% of South Africans believed the government is doing enough to fight crime, down from 50% last year.
The results fly in the face of Mbeki’s assertions in a television interview last Monday that most South Africans did not feel that crime was ”out of control”.
Although figures for most types of crime have dropped slightly in recent years, violent crime rates are still alarmingly high. Over 18 000 people are murdered and about 54 000 are raped each year in South Africa.
The survey also revealed that the pessimism with regard to crime extends to supporters of the governing ANC party and not just what are often referred to as the ”whinging whites”.
Less than half of ANC supporters (47%) thought the government is doing enough on crime.
Out of touch
Meanwhile, crime experts and victims have accused President Thabo Mbeki of being out of touch with reality with his denial that crime was out of hand, Beeld reported last Wednesday.
A senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Johan Burger, said Mbeki’s statement showed he was not clued up about the experiences of ordinary people.
In 1998, 25% of respondents said in a poll they did not feel safe going out after dark in their own areas.
”In a similar poll in 2004, that figure had jumped to 58% of people who felt unsafe,” said Burger.
Mbeki said in the TV interview it is just a perception that crime is out of control.
Most South Africans would agree, he told interviewer Tim Modise.
”It’s not as if someone will walk here to the TV studio in Auckland Park and get shot,” said Mbeki.
”That doesn’t happen and it won’t happen. Nobody can prove that the majority of the country’s 40-million to 50-million citizens think that crime is spinning out of control.”
Hisham Bhamjee, chairperson of the Brixton community policing forum, comprising Auckland Park, Melville, Rossmore, Mayfair and Crosby, said he advised the area’s 55 000 residents to be on the alert and to take precautions.
”Personally, I would not walk along Kingsway or Henley road [which flank the South African Broadcasting Corporation building in Auckland Park] at night,” said Bhamjee.
Crime figures for the greater Brixton area for 2005 and 2006 show 20 people were murdered, 527 armed robberies with aggravated circumstances were committed and there were about 680 assaults.
Former Springbok rugby wing Gerrie Germishuys, who was recently attacked at his home in Northcliff, Johannesburg, said: ”If the government’s armed bodyguards were taken away from them, they would realise how unsafe the country has become.”
Burger said there are some positive indicators that crime is levelling off, but it had to be appreciated that this is from an extremely high level [of crime].
”If crime is not out of control, it is under control. And, it may be a bit early to say that,” he said.
”One should not be duped by positive tendencies, because it does not make one any safer.”