The Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday it would be irresponsible to delay the release of crime statistics as they help police respond to localised crime situations.
This comes after Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa told SABC’s Interface programme that crime statistics should only be released every two years, DA MP Diane Kohler Barnard said.
She said the refusal to publish the statistics meant that the government was backtracking on its commitment to be tough on crime.
”What’s more, if statistics showed that the outlook was improving, it goes without saying that the minister would be shouting about it from the rooftops.
”It is difficult to believe that the minister’s decision not to release crime statistics before the election is anything other than a political ploy,” said Kohler Barnard.
The DA said that if it was government it would release weekly reports so that police and communities could analyse crime in their area.
But earlier, Mthethwa’s spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi said if they released the figures now, with the April 22 election date looming, and figures were down, they would be accused of trying to score political points.
”… Let’s de-politicise these particular stats because if we can release statistics now that will indicate that crime has gone down, the same people that are demanding the release of those particular statistics, they will cry foul and say that we are misusing government for political ends, because we’ll release statistics on the eve of elections that indicate that crime has gone down and therefore (score) political points for the ruling party,” he said on SAFM.
He was responding to a report in which analysts of crime statistics said the figures they had were about a year old.
Lesufi said whether they released them now or after the elections they were ”damned”.
He said they were committed to releasing statistics every six months, but the current minister, Mthethwa, had not been in office for six months yet.
Mthethwa was appointed minister on September 25, 2008, which was two days short of six months on Monday.
”When he spends six months we release those particular statistics,” he said.
But they would definitely be released in September, Lesufi said. — Sapa