February 11, 2007	Sunday	Muharram 22, 1428

JOHANNESBURG: Following a campaign by the South African business community to address widespread crime, President Thabo Mbeki acknowledged that it is a serious problem, promising an expanded police force and calling for a national “peace and security drive”.

In his State of the Nation address on Friday, Mbeki said his government would beef up South Africa’s police force from 152,000 to 180,000 officers within the next three years.

The government would also “improve the remuneration and working conditions of the police, and ensure optimal utilisation of the electronic monitoring and evaluation system that has just been introduced,” he said.

Mohamed Zain, a businessman in South Africa’s commercial hub of Johannesburg, laughed when asked whether increasing the number of police would make a difference. “I don’t think so. The armed robbers come when the police are not there,” he said.

“By the time the police arrive, the thieves are gone,” he said. “I think crime is driven by greed rather than poverty.”

Mbeki said South Africa had created some 1.5 million jobs in the past three years. “It’s encouraging that from March 2005 to March 2006 alone, 300,000 of the jobs created were in the formal sector outside of agriculture, representing a growth rate of about four per cent, “ he said.

Mbeki said his government is committed to helping the poor through basic cash grants. “While beneficiaries of social grants numbered about eight million in 2004, today 11 million poor South Africans have access to these grants,” Mbeki said.

Public anger almost boiled over after the murder of David Rattray, an internationally renowned Anglo-Zulu war historian, near his home in KwaZulu-Natal province on Jan 26. Two of his attackers have been apprehended. One has been tried and sentenced to 25 years in prison, while the other is awaiting trial. South Africa banned the death penalty in 1995.

One day after Rattray’s murder, the local First National Bank began running an anti-crime campaign in national newspapers. It had planned to place 1.5 million posters in newspapers, urging readers to write to Mbeki to make fighting crime a policy priority.

Police figures show that 18,000 South Africans — an average of 50 a day — are murdered each year.

Mbeki said last month that crime rates had fallen by ten per cent since the demise of the racist apartheid regime in 1994.

“Promoting peace and security will involve all people. It will build on and expand the national drive for peace and combat the endemic violence faced by communities... with special attention to the various forms of violence to which women are subjected,” Mbeki said.

Research shows that on average 147 women are raped in South Africa every day, says the Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust (RCCTT), a support group.

“Certainly, we cannot erase that which is ugly and repulsive and claim the happiness that comes with freedom if communities live in fear, closeted behind walls and barbed wire, ever anxious in their houses, on the streets and on our roads, unable freely to enjoy our public spaces. Obviously, we must continue and further intensify the struggle against crime,” Mbeki said.

In his speech, he also responded to calls for more training for the police to tackle crime.

“I must confess to being disappointed about the way in which President Mbeki dealt with the crisis of crime,” said Tony Leon, leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party.

His colleague, Patricia de Lille, leader of Independent Democrats party, agreed. “(Mbeki) didn’t come with a clear plan to tackle crime. I would like to see crime made a priority by government,” she told journalists.—Dawn/The IPS News Service