Note to editors: The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by the DA’s Shadow Minister of Police, Zakhele Mbhele MP, during the Budget Vote on Police and Independent Police Investigative Directorate.
It is a sad day when the Minister responsible for women, Susan Shabangu, states on Checkpoint that “Whilst Karabo came across as very strong, she was weak and hence became a victim of abuse”. The DA calls on her to immediately retract these careless and callous remarks and that she apologises to Karabo’s family.
It is also clear why we, as the DA, have already written to National Assembly Speaker, Baleka Mbete, to request a debate of national public importance on violence against women and have also requested a joint meeting of the Portfolio committees on Police, Justice and Women to discuss the government’s lack of effective response to gender-based violence.
Ngibingelela uNgqongqoshe noSekela Ngqongqoshe, amaLunga eKomiti nabaHlonishwa kuleNdlu.
At the occasion of this budget debate, it would be safe to say that this portfolio is in a critical condition.
The good news is that Minister Nhleko is gone. The damage inflicted both on this portfolio and on the reputation of its political leadership during his tenure will be his enduring legacy, which the new Minister must now work to repair.
The bad news is that the shoddy state of the police service has seemingly hardly changed from what it was this time last year, or the year before that, or going back several years, due to chronic negligence and mismanagement.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) at station level is still characterised by the four Us: Under-staffed; Under-resourced; Under-equipped; and Under-trained.
The root cause of the appalling situation is the ANC’s appointment of poor leadership with skewed priorities which fails to enforce strong accountability.
Until these fundamentals of leadership and proper organisational and systems management are fixed, there is no hope of making the police service more effective and therefore, no hope of making our country safer so that we no longer have to fear just walking down the street.
It is as simple as that.
The scourge of violence against women and children has recently been under the spotlight and we must reflect on the shortcomings and deficiencies of the organs of state that are meant to play a key role to keep safe the most vulnerable in our society.
When it comes to domestic and gender-based violence, we know that the first key mistake made was the dissolution of specialised units in the mid-2000s.
That mistake has since been rectified with the re-introduction of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Assault (FCS) Units but these units on average remain under-staffed and under-resourced and there simply are not enough of them.
This essentially means that the police have one hand tied behind their back when trying to stop to violence against women by ensuring that perpetrators do not get away with it, as a result of swift, quality investigations that secure high conviction rates.
While the police cannot by themselves prevent domestic violence or rape, effective policing can ensure that justice is served for every victim and that every perpetrator can be made an example of.
However, this effective policing cannot be realised while many stations do not have victim-friendly rooms and 40% of a sample of police stations used by the Civilian Secretariat in a past assessment was found not to be adequately capacitated in this regard.
Effective policing can also not be realised when, as often happens in many parts of the country, there aren’t enough vehicles to undertake visible patrols or respond to emergency call-outs.
In short, there will be no effective policing until the leadership, management and operation of the police service shifts from business-as-usual to ‘business unusual’.
Unfortunately, the 2017/18 SAPS budget does not indicate any such shift but signals that we can expect more of the same.
Alarmingly, the programmes of the SAPS that are crucial and directly relevant for crime-fighting and reduction, Crime Intelligence and Detective Services, are receiving the lowest relative percentage increase from 2016/17 to this financial year.
Human and sex trafficking syndicates who are preying on vulnerable girls and women in this country will not be tackled and defeated without an effective Crime Intelligence division.
Unless we boost our Detective Services, those who commit violence against women and children will know that they can do so with impunity and little to no chance of getting caught and facing the consequences of their crimes.
That is why we need a new approach in policing and it must start with you, Minister Mbalula.
You must provide decisive political leadership.
When your appointment was announced, you wasted no time in bringing your bombastic and colourful use of language and steroid-pumped social media savvy to matters of crime-fighting and policing. From #WanyaTsotsi to reckless statements that police must “fight fire with fire”, you made a big splash. However, I am concerned that you might have been missing the point.
To quote researcher and analyst, Gareth Newham, from the Institute for Security Studies, “one of [a Police Minister’s] key jobs is to create public trust in the police‚ which has been lost… People’s experiences are largely affected by how they experience the police first-hand and second-hand.
To build the public’s trust, the police must deliver better service‚ which [the Minister] can ensure through improving police training‚ provision of equipment‚ the morale of officers and adherence to the service’s code of conduct and ethics…You can’t spin your way out of it… There’s no short cut to improving public perceptions.”
This sentiment was echoed in a 6 April Business Day editorial which explained: “The danger is that when politicians don’t understand what good policing entails, they latch onto populist rhetoric. They imply, as Bheki Cele did, that we can either have human rights or effective policing; not both. But as Farlam pointed out, acting outside the law contributes to bad policing and erodes public trust. It is antics like this which create the impression Mbalula is a clown. He’ll need to work hard to change that view. He should use his energy to rebuild trust in the police.”
That trust-building process, Minister, is about getting the basics right and fixing the fundamentals of the police service. As I tweeted to you just over two weeks ago, “fighting crime is more than blitz operations. It’s about day-to-day systems management: vehicles, personnel, equipment, skills.”
Some more good news is that the ANC only have two more years left in government. After that the DA will demonstrate our resolve to bring safe streets and safe homes to all communities, where everyone can live with true freedom, to gain meaningful opportunities through the work of the national government we will lead after 2019.