Chairperson, in recent World Bank research among 325 big South African businesses, 94% of the respondents indicated crime and violence as the biggest stumbling blocks in the South African economy. When the man regarded as the world's most influential emerging markets investor, Mr Mark Mobius, President of Templeton Emerging Markets Group of the United States of America, says that the negative image of South Africa, which the high levels of crime has created abroad, scares his investors and board of directors, we cannot only sit up and take note. We have to act, and act effectively, in order to drastically reduce the totally unacceptable high levels of crime.
I wish to congratulate Commissioner Selebi and all police officers and members with their recent successes with Operation Crackdown. I am also encouraged by the fact that at long last the police now have a three-year strategy which will primarily focus on the approximately 140 station areas where more than 50% of the serious violent and organised crimes occur. It is, however, important that capacity be built to deal with management of crime, not only in these police areas, but at all police stations, so that the criminals do not just run from one area to another. The work of the police is, however, being seriously hampered by the shortage of at least 7 000 trained personnel, 7 860 vehicles and other equipment to the value of R85,2 million. This situation is totally unacceptable and I have written to the Minister of Finance in this regard, requesting that the amount of R928 million be made available to the police immediately to enable them to address these shortages.
The murder of police members has become a national disaster which simply cannot be allowed to continue. There should be no doubt that the uncertainty created by the new section 149 of the Criminal Procedure Act has contributed towards this, even though it has as yet not been implemented. In this regard, I am glad that my written request last year, through the then Secretary for Safety and Security, asking that the new section not be implemented in August 1999, was complied with. I now ask that the second part of my request, namely that the section be referred back to Parliament, should also be complied with as a matter of urgency.
The situation in respect of the salaries and other benefits of police members is totally unsatisfactory and should be addressed immediately. In this regard I would appreciate it if the Minister of Safety and Security could give us details of how the salaries of members of the SAPS compare with the salaries of the municipal police of Durban, for instance, and with that of the Scorpions at entry level and for comparable ranks.
I now wish to deal with Correctional Services and Justice. We clearly have a national crisis of major proportions on our hands in respect of the overpopulation of our prisons. The accommodation capacity of our prisons is 100 384 prisoners, and the current number of prisoners inside our prisons is 172 271. In other words, this is an overpopulation of 71,61%.
Sixty-three thousand, nine hundred and sixty-four are awaiting-trial prisoners. A prison like Pollsmoor is 180% overpopulated. The Western Cape Bureau of Correctional Services even threatens to close all prisons in the Western Cape if the crisis in respect of overpopulation is not addressed immediately.
Although awaiting-trial prisoners are, by law, the responsibility of the management of the Department of Justice, the Department of Correctional Services is responsible for keeping them in custody and, therefore, must have a definite and clear plan of action to deal with it. This is clearly a problem for both these departments which calls for urgent and extraordinary measures. What is more, if the police are going to continue to be successful in arresting many thousands of criminals with Operation Crackdown, then the number of prisoners in our prisons is going to increase dramatically. Apart from the massive overpopulation, correctional services also has a serious staff shortage. It was indicated that there will be a shortage of 7 437 members in the 2000-2001 financial year. From the report received from the Department of Justice, it appears that they have succeeded in achieving a decrease of 10% in the number of awaiting-trial prisoners.
In considering the reasons for the large number of awaiting-trial prisoners, it is acknowledged by the department that basic things are simply not being done correctly, and that this is mainly due to the lack of training and experience of prosecutors. The costs associated with unsentenced prisoners are estimated at R1,3 billion per year. The number of prosecutors trained by the Justice College unfortunately dropped substantially from 1 610 in 1997-98 to only 450 in 1998-99, as a result of budgetary constraints.
In some regions, persons with no prosecuting experience or training had to be appointed. This situation is unacceptable. [Time expired.] [Applause.]