After 8 Years of Failure We Will Make Crime the Agenda

Statement by Geordin Hill-Lewis – Leader of the Democratic Alliance:

The Democratic Alliance calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa and Parliament to pass the DA’s SAPS Amendment Bill and commence with lifestyle audits of all SAPS leadership, following the release of the latest national crime statistics.

After eight years of the Ramaphosa presidency, South Africa’s violent crime crisis has not been brought under control.

The latest crime statistics show that in just three months, 5,181 people were murdered, an average of 58 murders every day, and 9,782 rapes were reported.

Compared with the same quarter in 2018, South Africa now has more murders, while organised and violent crime continues to tighten its grip through carjackings, kidnappings, extortion and commercial crime.

After eight years of promises, South Africa is still not safe.

Crime cannot be treated as just another item on the national agenda. Crime should be right at the top of it.

No country can grow, no economy can create jobs, and no community can flourish while criminals operate with more confidence than law-abiding citizens.

A government that cannot protect its people has failed in its most basic duty.

This is the clearest difference between the ANC and the DA. The ANC has normalised violent crime as a fact of life. The DA will not.

A DA-led national government will make crime-busting the central mission where we govern by professionalising policing, fixing detective services, restoring visible policing, and making sure criminals are arrested, prosecuted and jailed.

Where the DA governs, we focus relentlessly on capable administration, accountability and results. South Africa needs that same approach at national level in policing.

The DA is therefore calling for two urgent steps.

First, Parliament must pass the DA’s SAPS Amendment Bill, so capable provincial and local governments can play a greater role in fighting crime where national policing has failed.

Second, the national government must immediately institute lifestyle audits for senior SAPS leadership and officers in high-risk units, so that corrupt police officials who protect criminals instead of the public are exposed and removed from the system.

South Africans need a government that will take back the streets, restore the rule of law, and make criminals fear the state again. Under my leadership, the DA will catch criminals, convict offenders, and clean up the criminal justice system because South Africans deserve to live free from fear.