Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille on Sunday accused the government of failing all South Africans in the battle against crime, with suspended police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi being ”a symbol of that failure”.
Zille, who spoke to about 3 000 people in Durban’s Phoenix area on Sunday afternoon following a tour through the area, told an enthusiastic crowd that corruption in the police force ”rots from the very top”.
She said that in the Phoenix area, about 70% of families had been affected by drugs in the community and that in 2007 there had been 2 000 drug-related crimes. She claimed this was an increase of 150% over the past five years.
Zille said that unemployment and resultant drug dependency had escalated levels of crime throughout South Africa and that 80% of crime in the country was drug or alcohol related.
”It is everywhere. The drug syndicates allegedly bribed our own police chief,” she said. ”The government is failing the people of South Africa in the battle against crime and Jackie Selebi is a symbol of that failure.”
She urged voters who were unhappy with the African National Congress (ANC) to vote in 2009. ”People get the government they deserve. You have to get the life you deserve.”
She again condemned the recent decision to disband the Scorpions and said that police who were attempting to fight crime were having their efforts complicated by corrupt colleagues.
Earlier, the DA’s KwaZulu-Natal leader, Mike Ellis, said that ANC supporters in Pietermaritzburg’s Northdale suburb had tried to disrupt a DA gathering on Saturday where Zille spoke.
He said: ”They know that the DA’s on the march. We are making progress where they don’t want us to, and that’s why they tried to disrupt us.”
At the end of Zille’s speech in Phoenix, a memorandum was handed over to police bemoaning the high levels of crime in the area. — Sapa