House chair
Members of the house
Fellow South Africans
A conference of the leading European powers meeting in Berlin in 1884-85, divided the African continent and shared the pieces, colonies and dependencies, amongst themselves.
Thus the 20th century history is a history of the struggle of the Africans for the achievement of their freedom, their human rights and their dignity as human beings. That just struggle produced for our country, the noble vision of one united, non-racial, non-sexist South Africa.
Generation after generation, the people of our land have striven to reconfigure the political institutions of our country to create a better society, better country in a better world.
To ensure that the vision of the birth of a just society is permanently rooted on the national agenda, our Constitution is anchored on the Bill of Fundamental Human Rights, guaranteeing to all , the right to life, human dignity and freedoms.
Hon Members
As the descendants of the heroines and heroes who gave birth to a just South Africa that belongs to all who live in it, on your shoulders, and indeed those of the entire current generation, rests the responsibility to strive to realise in practice, our people’s rights and freedoms.
The murderers who kill members of our police service, as well as members of society, do not respect the will of the millions of our people who, through their Bill of Rights, uphold every human being ‘s right to life, not only in law, but also as part of our live reality and experience.
Honourable members
The continued killing of members of the police service is an attempt to undermine the legitimate authority of the state.
This calendar year, 60 members of the service have been killed. Of those, 27 were killed on active duty. In the financial year from April 2014 to March 2015, 63 officers were killed on duty.
This is the extent of the ultimate pain criminals impose on families.
The pain etched in those faces should haunt us and propel us to ensure that we do our utmost to prevent the further killing of police officers. We just don’t have an option.
If we accept that each breadwinner takes care of 10 people on average, that means 770 people will face difficulty. Our system is already creaking at the seams because of the high rate of unemployment and we just cannot afford to add one more person to the numbers of those struggling to make ends meet.
House chair and honourable members
I mentioned earlier the figures of the police killed in the line of duty. It is true that a policeman or woman is always on duty because they cannot shed their oath of being protectors just because they are going home. They continue doing that which they committed themselves to and in the process pay the ultimate price.
They die with their boots on, being true to the Constitution which mandates them to “prevent, combat and investigate crime, to maintain public order, to protect and secure the inhabitants of the Republic and their property, and to uphold and enforce the law.”
But I do need to make this difference that most of the police are killed while in active duty. More than two thirds of the killings (71%) were happened when police were responding to the needs of the public. In short:
- 45.7% of police killed last year were attending to complaints (Robbery, hijacking and cash in transit)
- 11.4 while affecting or during evading of an arrest
- 5.7% conducting searches of persons and motor vehicles
- 5.7% pursuing suspects
- 5.7% while attending to domestic violence complaints
- 2.9% escorting suspects to police cells and
- 2.9% were victims of attack on the police stations.
What is referred to as random killings account for 14.2%.
This is why we aver that the killings are an attempt to delegitimise the authority of the state. We do not hear the voices of the communities across the country clamouring for the police killers to face the full might of the law.
We believe that the death of one policeman or woman is one too many, as the President said at the weekend memorial. We believe each killing not only deprives us of protectors and helpers but also robs the country of the investment that it has made in each and every member.
Each member serves just around 360 people. So 63 killings has deprived 22 554 people of the safety they deserve. The 60 killed so far this year would have been responsible for the safety and protection of 21 480 people.
The President has directed that an immediate plan of action be implemented to stem this killing of our police.
We have taken heed of this instruction and have put in measures under the auspices of Police Safety Strategy. This plan, the National Tactical Response Plan is to be immediately implemented and will conduct on-site investigations assessing the circumstances of all officers who have been killed.
Station and relief commanders will ensure directives and standing orders regarding safety are implemented. Inspections will take place to ensure officers have the right safety gear and they will be briefed on all possible dangerous suspects and potential situations when reporting for duty.
Over and above that, there will be assessments of the environment; to identify root causes as well as potential threats and trends in order to enhance preventative measures and access to police premises in order to address safety and security vulnerabilities.
These assessments will further assist the police to determine the modus operandi of perpetrators, threats to members and trends of criminal activity.
We have embarked on the profiling of suspects and identifying high risk areas such as gang infested areas, descriptions of dangerous suspects and suspicious vehicles and enhance awareness amongst police members to strengthen operational and psychological readiness on a regular basis.
Furthermore, the leadership of the police has decided on ensuring that adequate, serviceable resources and equipment are available to support and strengthen police members during deployment.
We have also ensured that there is a need to identify early warning signs, of potential depression, stress, suicide, substance abuse, anger and relationship deficiencies and involve Employee Health and Wellness to strengthen psychological and emotional fitness of police officers on and off duty.
In the end, most of these measures will gravitate towards the overall plan to transform the police – which means that the training provided will be reassessed and where needed, new methods be introduced to make our men and women in blue safe.
Enough is enough. Wabulala iphoyisa, wabulala isizwe. (You kill the police, you kill the nation)
Thank you.
