DA: Crime stats 'sexed-up'

2003-09-23 18:17

Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance on Tuesday called into question government's latest crime statistics, saying Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula deliberately "sexed up" the report.

"The minister sexed up the crime statistics in order to mislead the media, and to mislead the people of South Africa," said DA spokesperson on safety and security, Douglas Gibson at a media briefing.

Minister Nqakula and national police commissioner Jackie Selebi on Tuesday released the official crime statistics for 2002/2003.

This indicated that crime decreased in the murder, assault, rape, housebreaking and vehicle hijacking categories.

However, Gibson disputed this, saying the SAPS Crime Information Analysis Centre provided a complete picture.

According to Gibson, murder actually increased from 21 405 to 21 553 between 2001/02 to 2002/03.

Assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm increased from 264 012 to 266 321, while rape did not decrease by 5.7% as claimed, but only by 2.7% from 54 923 to 52 425.

Turning to housebreaking, Gibson claimed the figures were changed using "sleight of hand by including business premises" and instead of decreasing, actually increased by 17 327 from 302 657 to 319 984 or 5.7%.

Hijacking for cars decreased by only seven percent from 15 846 to 14&nbvsp;691 and not the claimed 20% decrease.

Gibson charged that Nqakula had "destroyed" his credibility and had undermined the credibility of the ANC.

He said presenting crime statistics as crimes-per-100  000 of the population - as the government had done - held two major problems.

"The South African public are interested to know how many murders, robberies, etc, there were in absolute terms and whether they had increased or decreased. (And secondly) there is no single population model with which to extrapolate population numbers between censuses.

"The model that predicts the highest population level and, consequently the lowest ratio could be chosen to sex up the SA Police Services achievements in tackling crime," he said, highlighting the fact that the last census was completed in 2001.

Gibson called on Nqakula to apologise to the public, the media and parliament, adding that he would also ask for a debate in the National Assembly on the issue.

- SAPA