'Crime must be #1 priority'

2006-07-31 14:53

Cape Town - If President Thabo Mbeki were properly informed, he would not have compared crime in London to that in Johannesburg in his post-cabinet meeting at the weekend, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said.

South Africa had one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world, he said in a statement on Monday.

"While there may be more car thefts in London, the reality is that London had 178 murders in 2005, while Johannesburg, with a population half the size, experienced 2 191 murders in the same period - a difference of 2 013, or 81%."

Leon said Mbeki should have used the meeting to impress upon his ministers in the peace and security cluster that crime must be government's number one priority.

However, it seemed to have "amounted to little, other than the expressing of good intentions, as the absence of clearly-defined targets and timeframes for the fight against crime attests to".

Mbeki should have announced a clear and binding set of goals to combat crime, including setting specific targets for national and provincial leaders.

He should also have announced plans on how to deal with the "chronic shortage" of personnel in the SAPS.

"In some provinces, such as Gauteng, there is a shortage of a third of the detectives and half of the crime prevention personnel the provincial SAPS requires to operate optimally."

The president should also have announced the lifting of its unofficial moratorium on the release of crime statistics.

"It is reprehensible, given the risk that citizens currently face, that the government deliberately withholds information that they could use to limit their risk of exposure to crime," Leon said.

- SAPA