Hon Chairperson of the NCOP hon Thandi Modise, the Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP hon Tau, the Chief Whip of the NCOP hon Seiso Mohai, permanent members of the House, distinguished guests, MECs present, ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure and privilege that I rise before you this afternoon
to provide an account on the Ministry of Police and the Department of Police activities since the NCOP event of Taking Parliament to the People which took place in Gauteng from 19 to 22 November.
The overall theme for the 2018 Taking Parliament to the People programme was, I quote, "The impact of migration in Gauteng and its implication with a special reference to peace and stability, social services, education, growth and development as well as infrastructure and human settlement".
Hon members, our democratic processes encourage us to constantly engage our communities in a meaningful and constructive way. The efforts by Parliament like the Taking Parliament to the People need to be commended and continued because they form the corner stone of our participatory democracy and community engagement which in essence means the issue of people centred approach is the fundamental principle of our democracy.
We met our people between 19 and 22 November 2018 at Ekurhuleni Municipality. They raised several issues which include police resource constraints, ration of police members to population, vehicles and police stations. They also raised their concerns of the illegal immigration or immigrants into the Republic of South Africa
which poses threat to policing, peace and stability. They went further to raise the impact of violence in our schools and universities.
Hon members, one of our challenges, as said by the people, is the environmental design and town planning of our residences and towns including the scourge of drugs and alcohol abuse. We can proudly say, as the police, that we made follow ups with all the complaints laid with an aim of resolving them. For example, the implementation of the National Drug Master Plan is in place, which involves all critical departments - Education, Social Services, Health etc.
This plan is already implemented and we are beginning to see positive results. As a result of this plan, we have signed a trilateral agreement, immediately after the Taking Parliament to the People event, with Tanzania and Mozambique with the aim of stopping drugs and illegal immigrants, human trafficking and all other forms of transnational crime.
I am happy to report that, because of this trilateral agreement of co- operation between these countries, we have managed to confiscate drugs at the port of Ngqura with an estimated street value of R720 million. Our department has put in place a community policing
strategy, as announced by the President of the Republic of South Africa, with the aim of mobilising all sectors of our communities in the fight against crime. These include church leaders, community policing forums, community safety forums at a municipality level, youth organisations, schools and universities, traditional leaders and many more.
Chairperson, it is our belief that, whilst our police are doing their level best, they can't win this war against crime without the active participation of our people on the ground. The issue of environmental design need to be addressed very urgently. This speaks to challenges of no street lighting in some of the areas; no roads; no parks; and no sports facilities for our youth.
These are the reasons why at the end of 2018 the South African Police Service, Saps, hosted the National Youth Crime Prevention Summit that adopted the National Youth Crime Prevention Framework that is going to be officially launched during the June, Youth Month of Action this year.
This is coupled by socio-economic challenges facing our society. Therefore, the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster is
fundamentally addressing cross sectional issues relating to crime in our society- issues of managing the parolees and illegal immigrants.
Hon Chairperson, the principal challenge in the fight against crime is insufficient resources dedicated to the security cluster in response to cover the genuine needs and demands of our people. It is in this regard that the Ministry of Police has undertaken many visits to schools, universities and many other hotspots including Hillbrow, Port Elizabeth etc. That is why the Independent Police Investigative Directorate is at hard work investigating corruption with regards to police that are working together with criminals and put them into books.
Hon members, with the new budget presented by the Minister of Finance, Mr Tito Mboweni, during his budget speech on 20 February 2019 in the National Assembly, the Saps recommits to reprioritise the budget to respond to the cries of our people. So, they are prepared, within the constraints of such a budget, to increase the number of boots on the ground, the number of police stations and the number of vehicles to reduce crime in our communities.
However, Chairperson, I must demystify some of the issues here. The position of the police and that of the Republic of South Africa is
to deal with illegal immigrations and not general immigration. Immigration is a function of human progress which makes people move from one country to another because of developments in a particular region in the world. That is a function of human progress, and because of that it affects the economy of a number of countries positively or negatively.
In relation to the Republic of South Africa, because we know that the economy is a state of production and consumption in a particular country and moreover the circulation of money, the constraints ... when people come into the Republic of South Africa illegally they impact on the state of production, consumption and the circulation of money which makes them vulnerable to committing crime. Therefore, it is not our policy as the ANC to talk about general immigration, but to talk about illegal immigration - people who come to South Africa illegally and run away from the proper processes.
Secondly, I want to endorse the issue ... It is not true that cars of MECs in the Western Cape do not have blue lights. I am a police and we never took out those blue lights. So, you must come here with facts and not talk about blue lights that you do not know. We know because we put those blue lights. If those people in those cars are
in danger, we, as the South African Police Service will respond and not you. We are going to be accountable, not you.
So, don't come here to grandstand and not talk about the rate of crime here in the Western Cape. You only talk about unemployment or employment. In statistics, Africans in particular and black people in general here in Western Cape are unemployed. The Statistics SA tells us that the majority of the people here in managerial positions are white males followed by white females, followed by Indians, followed by coloureds and Africans are at the bottom of the equation.
So, it is untrue that you are doing work here. We know that you have relations with gang leaders for your elections campaign. You make sure that you use gangsterism to fight the national government. You wanted an army and we came with the Antigang Unit and now you are criticising the Antigang Unit that is doing good work here in this province. [Applause.] So, it is not true.
You killed Bambanani here that was intervening in schools safety. We were intervening in schools safety guarding our children. In your Bill you proposed that we must sell alcohol and cigarettes in schools - mobilising our young people to be confused and not focused
in schooling but go back to gangsterism because you use gangsterism as a political weapon.
Corruption is rampant here. Go to Knysna today. When there were fires in Knysna, we mobilised food parcels for our people and they put DA logos on those parcels and campaigned there in Knysna. They did it in George. The DA is preying on the difficulties and pains of our people for political ends.
The public works programmes that you are talking about, in George here generally in the Western Cape, are given to DA card-carrying members. We know that thing. If you are ANC you are not employed here. Tell me, in the government of the Western Cape, who is an ANC member that is there? No single one - all of them are DA members.
You talk about one single South Africa in your posters but you propose that you must have your own police army and own railway here in the Western Cape. You propose a contradiction between a united country and federalism. So, it is a confusion of policy. Come with a proper policy here in this province.
I want to say that we must not use Parliament and the pains of our people for expediency. We must use this platform to develop our own
minds and common thinking to push back the frontiers of poverty and unemployment for our own people. This grandstanding is the one that is killing our children in these schools. You do not want to resolve that matter because if it is resolved it would mean that the ANC would be in power for the next 20 years.
Chairperson, in conclusion, we further recommit to work with all our people to realise the objectives of the National Development Plan to make all South Africans feel safe. Thank you very much.