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'No crime stats moratorium'
06/09/2006 20:55 - (SA)
Cape Town - There is no moratorium on crime statistics in South Africa and people wanting to know about crime levels in their area can just ask their local police station, says deputy safety and security minister Susan Shabangu.
She said on Wednesday: "If you are interested in any particular area, in understanding the crime trends in that area, you've got every right to go to any police station and talk to the station commissioner and ask for that," she said in the national assembly.
Responding to a question posed by the Democratic Alliance's Dianne Kohler-Barnard, she said the moratorium on crime statistics had been lifted more than five years ago.
Shabangu said: "The moratorium... was implemented on July 18 2000 and lifted on May 31 2001 by the late minister of safety and security, Steve Tshwete."
Forbidden to provide stats
Reacting to Kohler-Barnard's remark that people were ignorant of crime levels in their neighbourhoods because police refused to divulge figures, claiming the government had forbidden them to do so, Shabangu said national figures were released annually.
"May I also bring to the attention of this house that... we issue statistics on an annual basis...
"We will always, on a national level, issue crime stats on an annual basis."
Later this month, annual statements on crime statistics would be released.
Shabangu said all South Africans were "very much aware" of crime trends.
"You are the only person who is very ignorable (sic)," she told Kohler-Barnard.
'Better way of communicating'
Shabangu said crime statistics allowed her department to plan its response to crime trends and allocate resources.
Asked if she could give an "unequivocal guarantee" that people could get crime statistics at their local police station, she said that in her area (Vosloorus), she had access to the figures.
She suggested people who were not obtaining the statistics "need to find a better way of communicating with their police station".
- SAPA
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