Why is the underperformance of the police and the NPA good enough for the average South African, but not for politicians?
When the mayor of Ekurhuleni, Nkosindiphile Xhakaza, reported to a parliamentary committee that senior city officials face serious threats, I struggled to feel sympathy.
After all, he’s deployed by the ANC, the very party that’s broken so many of the systems developed to protect him and his team. Of course, not all party members are complicit in the social breakdown, but the response is as frightening as the problem.
Political killings task team
The establishment of a political killings task team? Yeah, we have a whole police service and National Prosecuting Authority, but what we need to do is establish something new to protect the politicians. Supposedly, it’s only when the politicians suffer that we should look into South Africa’s problems.
Remember when President Cyril Ramaphosa boasted that he feared fokkol? It had the same ring to it as his “we are not beggars” before jumping on a plane to fly to the Oval Office and ask quite politely (but not beg) to avoid Donald Trump’s tariffs.
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How arrogant does one have to be to look around at all the murders in the country, from AKA to Lolly Jackson to Senzo Meyiwa to the most recent hit on insolvency attorney Bouwer van Niekerk and think, “hmmm, you know what we need? A political killing task force”.
Does the average South African’s life not matter?
How does that help the majority of people being targeted in this country? Do they not matter? Is the failing performance of the police and the NPA good enough for the average South African, but political players deserve the elite package… and on our increasing dime?
What’s the point of a political killing task force? Is political murder a new thing? Who was killed before somebody finally realised that we should possibly consider doing something about it? And why did it have to be a political hit? How is it that hits and murders can occur daily, and we just carry on with what we have, but now that there’s concern about the politicians, a new task force is necessary?
The state of killing in the country is pretty awful and hasn’t been decisively addressed since Bheki ‘Shoot to Kill’ Cele was police commissioner. Granted, he was foolish, but at least he took a strong position against violent crime.
SA’s security cluster isn’t working
The same dedication against crime cannot be said for our current crop. Even at a prosecutorial level, before our current National Director of Public Prosecution, Shamila Batohi, we had a guy dubbed “the sheep” because he was so meek.
Batohi hasn’t delivered much excitement in prosecution either, and we may find ourselves reading her comprehensive term report, thinking it’s the “lite” version.
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State instruments that are meant to keep us safe are clearly not functioning, but the path forward can’t involve simply setting up a new task team to deal with a specific faction of crime while the rest of the crime is allowed to fester. We plebeians require some protection too.
It would be much appreciated if police services could improve to the point where none of us get threatened or murdered. It would be marvellous if victims didn’t need a political connection to be taken seriously.
Mostly, it would be appreciated if there could be an admission that if you believe the solution is to set up a political killings task team, that the current security cluster isn’t working, and not just for the political class.
If you can admit that the security isn’t good enough for you, you can admit it’s not good enough for us.
Tell ya what! You can have your political killings task team if we can have a public killings task team. Oh, I think we have that already, and it’s called the police. How about making that a more functional institution?
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