Police Minister Bheki Cele, in his quarterly crime report this week, says the police are “cleansing house and ridding the service of officers who choose to partner with rogue criminal elements”.
That is obviously good news, but to millions of South Africans who live in the cities, suburbs, villages and informal settlements his words count for nothing. They are meaningless and lack significance.
At best, they should be seen as a public relations exercise to appease angry South Africans who see his ministry as inept and sleeping on the job.
If in three months South Africa logs 7 555 people who have been murdered by heartless hoodlums, and the minister on the other hand says he is cleaning his house when the horse has already bolted, what is there to celebrate? Why in the first place do you employ criminals to protect communities? That is absurd.
In any other civilised country that values its people, Cele would have long been fired. Why is President Cyril Ramaphosa not mustering the courage to show him the door?
Nearly 6 000 women during this period were raped. Women cannot walk the country’s streets without looking over their shoulders. We are a democracy. We are not a mafia state.
The injunction of the constitution demands of the government to protect its citizens, which means that the police are duty-bound to fulfil this task.
Frankly, it is nonsensical to hear Cele cites the shortages of patrol vans as one of the reasons for the high crime rate.
This is a lame excuse.
The people want nothing but boots on the ground. They want an efficient professional police service to achieve the objective of protecting the citizenry.
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