Note to editors: The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by the DA Shadow Minister of Police, Zakhele Mbhele MP, during the debate on Xenophobia.
The English philosopher John Locke, who laid much of the foundation of modern liberal thought wrote that the primary duty of any government was to ensure the security of the nation and the protection of the rights of its citizens. This is how it would care for the people.
In return for the fulfilment of this duty of the government, the people would reciprocate in this social contract by being law-abiding, which would promote a society of harmonious co-existence.
On many fronts of governance and state delivery, the ANC government has failed in fulfilling its duty, showing that it does not care about the people. Whether in the case of the deprivation of the right to life for the victims of the Esidimeni scandal and the Marikana massacre or putting the comfort of the political elite before caring for the needs of the people through indulgent state spending on cushy cars, luxury hotel accommodation and excessive VIP Protection, the ANC has broken the social contract that underpins the relationship between citizens and the government.
This brokenness is starkly evident, and has been for many years, in the area of border security and policing. It is part of a chronic and endemic pattern of ANC misgovernance: from a broken President and Parliament to a broken SABC and society – the ANC breaks almost everything it touches.
As a result of its misgovernance and mismanagement, the ANC has been creating and piling up the dry tinder that we have seen become kindled into bonfires of unrest and xenophobic violence over the years.
The seeds of these xenophobic flare-ups were sown in the inability of the ANC to create jobs for almost 9 million South Africans and also in the mismanagement and ultimate weakening of border security, creating porous and poorly controlled borders that make illegal in-migration virtually impossible to police and curtail.
The cause and manifestation of this border security mismanagement are well-known: under-resourcing, under-staffing, under-equipping, under-training, incompetent leadership and a failure to enforce accountability.
While the stream of illegal immigration over the years has, on one hand, created the context for violent xenophobic outbreaks, the chronic neglect of the police service has, on the other hand, undermined and hollowed out the state’s capacity to forecast and respond adequately to public unrest when it does break out.
In 2008, 2015 and now 2017, the Criminal Intelligence division of the SAPS seemingly never saw the xenophobic violence coming, even though there always seems to be an organised element to these episodes.
When the violence does erupt, the SAPS response is slow and ineffectual and policing capacity is initially too thin on the ground to contain the violence, enabling it to escalate and spread. The reasons for this shoddy state of readiness are the same familiar ones: under-resourcing, under-staffing, under-equipping, under-training and poor leadership.
The DA will fix our broken border security and police service when we come to lead national government because we care.
We will ensure adequate resourcing, staffing, training and equipping. We will boost the frequency and coverage of border patrolling.
We will fix our broken Crime Intelligence so that it can foresee disturbances before they erupt and we will restore Public Order Policing to adequate strength so that it contain unrest before it escalates and spreads.
We will build a caring government that reconnects with the people through a social contract that all citizens can trust and put their confidence in.
After 23 years of failing delivery and corrupt governance, the ANC has broken the trust that it once enjoyed with the people. The people will soon place that trust in another government that deserves it and truly cares for them.