I couldn’t have said it better myself. A fellow-journalist and friend of mine said this week that the latest crime statistics ‘painted a picture of a country at war with itself’.
Never mind how much we want to deny it, we are in essence, living in a war zone. The crime statistics read like a horror novel. Murder and mayhem, death and destruction, rape and assault are the order of the day. In our beautiful City of Joburg, these horrific deeds are daily occurrences. Crime is out of control.
According to the statistics of the Institute for Security Studies, we are now 13 per cent more likely to be murdered than five years ago.
While we were being bombarded with the shocking and sickening crime statistics, our acting National Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Lesetja Mothiba said he believes that South African citizens have faith in the country’s police force. In your dreams!
Our Minister of Police, Fikile Mbalula, also tried his very best to minimise the crime catastrophe when he spoke about crime stats in Parliament.
You can try and cover it up with nice turns of phrases, Minister Mbalula. You can try and persuade us that it could have been worse. The facts are that horrifying and despicable crimes are daily occurrences in our beautiful and beloved country.
To highlight how serious the situation is: Five of the 20 busiest police stations in the country are right here on our doorstep. Johannesburg Central, Honeydew, Hillbrow, Sandton and Midrand police stations are bombarded with serious crime.
Our city and our country won’t be judged by what we did when Nelson Mandela was alive and things were good. Unfortunately not. We will be judged by what we do now, while things aren’t that good.
We have to make our government understand – in no uncertain terms – that we are not happy with these shocking crime stats. We are expecting them to turn this situation around with proactive and effective crime prevention actions now.
