As election season looms, the political rhetoric hitting voter pressure points is omnipresent.
Violence, drugs, gangsterism and policing is a palpable trigger especially now as KwaZulu-Natal commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s explosive bombshell in July last year reverberates.
South Africans have watched investigators nab a growing list of high-profile suspects, from corruption-accused senior police officers to alleged underworld figures facing charges in separate investigations.
They have cringed as senior police officials, prosecutors, businessmen and some witnesses have either squirmed or confessed in the hot seat ― or evaded questioning thanks to a sick note ― at the Madlanga commission of inquiry and the ad-hoc and oversight committees examining systemic rot within the criminal justice value chain.
All of it confirms the deep-rooted criminal infiltration of South Africa’s law enforcement and fills the public with despair and disillusionment ― fertile ground for political manipulation ahead of the all crucial elections in November.
Crime statistics have historically been an albatross the country carries with dire consequences to our economic well-being, repelling tourism and investors alike.
The knowledge then that politically connected syndicates involving police and the judiciary enrich themselves off the blood, trauma and hardship of ordinary South Africans is particularly galling.
Hill-Lewis and co raise a valid point ― last year, the ministers of justice and police granted Gauteng’s Amapanyaza peace officers expanded crime-prevention powers, demonstrating that broader municipal policing powers were possible.
That’s the sentiment expressed by the families of victims of violent crime outside the Bishop Lavis police station on Monday after Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that the city had formally declared an intergovernmental dispute with acting police minister Firoz Cachalia to secure expanded investigative powers for metro police.
The dispute, lodged under the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act, follows years of unsuccessful engagements between the city and national government over granting metro police greater investigative authority.
The families spoke about the constant shooting, robberies, smash-and-grabs, proliferation of drugs and gangsterism, clinging to hope for the solution proffered by Hill-Lewis and his party.
Hill-Lewis said the city has exhausted every avenue to secure the additional powers through cooperation with national government for five years and has been stonewalled.
He believes the recently tabled SAPS Amendment Bill presented an ideal opportunity to amend section 64E of the SAPS Act to allow metro police ― which has been boosted substantially in the past five years ― to investigate crimes linked to their own arrests, then appoint trained detectives to investigate firearm-related cases generated by metro police.
This bulked up unit would itself investigate violent crimes, including gang-related murders and shootings, to help secure prosecutions.
Realistically, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Operation Prosper ― the deployment of about 1,300 soldiers to address high crime rates and gang violence in hotspots in April ― hasn’t lived up to its name.
The mass killings persist week in, week out. The question hangs in the air, what is the reason behind the stalling of granting the City of Cape Town’s request for expanded investigative authority to its metro cops? Is government doing its best to close the policing gap?
Hill-Lewis and co raise a valid point ― last year, the ministers of justice and police granted Gauteng’s Amapanyaza peace officers expanded crime-prevention powers, demonstrating that broader municipal policing powers were possible.
There are numerous ways to find a solution towards effective, corruption-free policing, and all efforts should focus on this mandate of protecting the South African public.
The cohesive manner in which crime intelligence, police, business and private security responded to the threat surrounding the nation ahead of the June 30 deadline for foreigners to leave South Africa holds valuable lessons and is a starting point for a model which holds many role-players accountable.
Rather than fighting semantics, ego and political flexing, the government of national unity should be unanimous in finding a solution to fight crime and take down criminal syndicates that will be effective long after the elections.
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