Chairperson, we must thank the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, for the work they have done in interrogating this report of the Auditor-General which has presented shocking results. Many South Africans have become accustomed to police arriving at a crime scene many hours after the crime was reported. In some instances, especially where I come from, you call the police today and they arrive the next day. Now we know that the reason for this is not just because they don't have vehicles, which is a common excuse we get. The real reason is that there are hundreds of police officers who still cannot drive or do not even have driving licences, or the vehicles are used to fetch colleagues from their homes. We know now that the real reason so many police officers are being slaughtered by criminals is because many of them don't have bulletproof vests.
It is sickening that 98% of the police stations surveyed show that proper procedures have not been followed in respective domestic violence cases. When you read the results of this report, you realise just why we are unable to reduce the high levels of crime in our country, especially when simple records of meetings are not being kept.
If we do not address the shortcomings and the recommendations of Scopa in this report in an urgent basis, our fight against crime will amount to absolutely nothing. Thank you.