Issued by: Ministry for Safety and Security
OPENING REMARKS BY MR F.S. MUFAMADI, MINISTER FOR SAFETY AND SECURITY, AT THE BRIEFING ON CRIME, SAPS TRAINING COLLEGE, PRETORIA-WEST, 5 DECEMBER 1997
Chairperson; MEC's for Safety and Security; Leaders and representatives of Political Parties; Chairperson and Members of the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security; Leaders of the SAPS; Ladies and gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to this hastily organised briefing session.
This briefing session has its origins in the step taken by the energetic leader of the National Party, Mr Martinus van Schalkwyk. He wrote a letter to President Nelson Mandela expressing concern about the problem of crime in our country - a concern which we all share.
President Mandela and I felt it necessary, in the light of the issues and the manner in which they were raised by Mr van Schalkwyk, to arrange for this session to which you were invited.
It is common cause amongst us that crime is sabotaging our country's attempt at transforming itself into a zone of prosperity. This session gives the Department of Safety and Security the welcome opportunity to brief you about the steps we have taken to deal with this problem. It bears emphasising that like you, we believe that many areas of our work require improvement. Your observations and counsel will be of considerable value in this regard.
This briefing is intended to ensure that when we make interventions on this matter of national importance, we should do so proceeding from a common information-base. Since many of us are parliamentarians, it may be difficult not to approach our discussions from the narrow political interests of our respective parties. This is a temptation which informed debate should resist.
I want to repeat that I believe that we share a common concern about the gravity of the situation. I also believe that we have common intentions. From where I sit, I have also come to realise that linear advances are not possible. For we operate in conditions where sometimes what we want to do is constrained by many elements. Those elements include:
a. The rapid globalisation to crime with the attendant operational sophistication on the part of the criminals which has become so manifest in our country.
b. Growing evidence of the involvement in crime of elements who were either part of liberation armies or part of the covert structures in the old dispensation.
c. Pandemic corruption in the criminal justice system as well as the public service generally,
d. The thin skills-base on which we are relying for our fight against crime.
We point to these factors and many others, not because we want to justify inactions. We will indicate what it is we are doing to overcome these problems. Mr Chairperson, I am saying all these factors have to be borne in mind when we try to determine whether we are on the retreat or advancing.
I want to repeat that the Department of Safety and Security brings no holy cows into this discussion. We hope that you are approaching this interaction in the same spirit.
For far too long we have had to tackle the problem of crime in conditions of intellectual poverty. Your presence here holds the promise of helping us break new ground.
I hope that one day we shall be able to look back and recall this as one of the most enriching encounters.
Thank you