Conveners of the Prayer Meeting, Reverend TM Mbekwa and Bishop DD Mtsolo;
Senior Pastors, Reverends and Bishops from different churches;
SAPS Western Cape Provincial Commissioner, Lt Gen Lamoer;
SAPS Provincial management present;
Local councilors present,
Members of Community Policing Forums present,
Community of Khayelitsha and surrounding areas,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We extend our appreciation to the interfaith community, for initiating this prayer meeting this evening. We would like to believe that your decision to arrange such a gathering is informed by the spirit of care, love and concern for your communities.
It is with a sense of awe, humility and gratitude that we honoured this invite precisely because we understand that your intentions are neither about grandstanding about crime or seeking glory, but inspired by a commitment to serve.
We commend your stance of being the doers and not the talkers. You could have sat on the side of the fence and criticize government’s efforts in the fight against crime, however, you conformed to our philosophy, which is a community policing philosophy.
For government, the interfaith community is an important partner in the regeneration of our moral values and the implementation of our programmes. We understand that the fight against crime requires an integrated approach which includes addressing decent values. The interfaith community teaches values of caring and sharing and promotes upright and moral citizens.
If children from an early age are taught the values articulated by the interfaith community the likelihood of them growing up to be responsible and caring adults is that much greater. Therefore, partnering with your community help us not just with combating crime but also in the implementation of sustainable crime prevention. Today’s prayer meeting must serve as an example to other communities across our country. More importantly, we are saying interfaith community must be actively involved in the community policing forums and working with police to deal with the issue of crime.
We further want to emphasise the interfaith community has always been part of the struggles to build our country and a better society. It is with this in mind that we invite you to enhance this role by joining hands with us in building a truly non-racial, non-sexist, and democratic society which is free from crime, violent crime in particular and crimes against women and children.
We are aware of some of the challenges faced by this community, including increase of crime levels, which are more accompanied by high levels of violent crime, gangsterisms and stabbings. The proliferation of illegal firearms also contributes to the escalating incidents of crime. On a daily basis, we continue to develop and implement plans to reduce crime, with the support and in partnership with all law-abiding citizens of our country.
This evening, through this initiative, we have hope for safer communities because through prayer, all things are possible. We feel rejuvenated in our efforts of crime fighting that your prayers shall sustain us in this mission of ensuring safety of our communities. Together, we will ensure safer communities. Safer business environments. Safer schools and hospitals.
The scourge of crime respects nobody. Many young people in Khayelitsha and in fact across various parts of our country are on a daily basis compounded by crime, prostitution and drugs. We are encouraged this evening to be joined by many young people at this prayer meeting.
We want to utilise this important occasion to make a clarion call to all young people to lead exemplary lifestyles, away from crime. As future generations, you cannot and must never abdicate on your responsibilities of ensuring that you remain free from crime, prostitution and drugs.
As young people you live in an imperfect world loaded with indecencies, social ills, civil and drug conflicts. All these social disturbances have placed the picture of young people in doubt. Unless you organise yourselves, it would be difficult to deal with the challenges facing the youth.
As the youth you are the representative of the future. The damaging impact of drugs is therefore not limited to individual victims, localities and a specific point in time. Your loyalty is contested by various forces including criminal elements, thus a need to form an informed, effective and creative shield around the youth.
We know that marginalised youth represent an easy target for gangs and syndicates, the community and its leaders should therefore pay attention to the issue of social exclusion. Drugs are both a crime and a cause of crime. Good parenting goes a long way in the fight against drugs and drug abuse.
As young people today you need earnestly to begin to think about the many young people who are still under the bondage of drugs, crime and not in control of their lives. Political freedom has been attained which to a large extent was spearheaded by young people. However until the millions of youth enjoy true economic and social justice, we can never really claim that we have a future.
The recent upsurge in the number of murdered police officers remains a worrying factor to us as police leadership and management. We are certain it is a worry to millions of law-abiding citizens of our country. We shall end police killings. We shall ensure that those who kill police officers are punished. We are under no illusion that all of us as law-abiding South Africans have a protracted war ahead of us; a war that has been declared by heartless criminals on our men and women in blue.
Let us report criminals who kill our police officers and not harbor them. From the police leadership, management and the entire SAPS family, we are ready to get our hands dirty and deal with these heinous crimes. We have the will; we have the way and commitment to curb these atrocious killings of police.
Our policing philosophy is primarily embedded in the close cooperation between police and all spheres of society. The active involvement of community structures, in local projects like community patrol groups, contributes towards decreasing crime in general.
It is a fact of history that faith based organisations played a critical role in the struggle against apartheid. However a new struggle that we are facing now is a struggle to defeat crime and criminals. As members of society from different religions, we must be joined by a common goal of eradicating crime, in whatever form it manifests itself.
We must therefore continue to work towards a better life for all. The kind of society we envisage must also bear the imprint of the values of faith, sacrifice and service to the people, particularly, the poor. Initiatives such as this, contribute towards the attainment of such a goal.
Society faces a complex of ills, including poverty, crime, backlogs in health, education, broader service delivery including violence against women, children and the elderly. The interfaith community should lend its hand in the collective fight against these social and economic challenges.
The call we are making to you today is that together we can do more to make South Africa a safer and better country. Together we can push back the frontiers of evil. The government together with the people of our country remains capable of tackling the challenges that South Africa faces.
Collectively, We Shall Fight and Defeat Crime.
I thank you.
