Councillors and other Public Representatives
Officials of the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison
Representatives of the Human Rights Commission
Representatives of the National Prosecution Authority
Representatives of the Department of Correctional Services
Representatives of the Department of Health and Social Development
Representatives of South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence
Representatives of Limpopo Liquor Board
Representatives of the Legal Aid
Ladies and gentlemen
Comrades and friends
Good morning!
Programme Director,
Let me start off with a disclaimer. I am standing in for the MEC for Safety, Security and Liaison Me. Happy Joyce Mashamba who was scheduled to deliver the opening address to this workshop. Due to urgent government business elsewhere, MEC Mashaba cannot be with us today. She has sent her apology and wishes this workshop all the success.
The onus of delivering the welcome address therefore falls on my shoulders.
Programme Director,
The National Development Plan describes safety as a core human right. It is a necessary condition for human development, improving quality of life and enhancing productivity. When communities, like those in Westernburg, don’t feel safe and live in fear, the country’s economic development and the people’s wellbeing is affected, hindering their ability to achieve their potential.
The National Planning Commission‘s Diagnostic Report underlined the reality that high crime levels have slowed South Africa’s social and economic development. The report goes on to say that violent crime, contact crime and property crimes are so common that many South Africans live in fear. When people feel unsafe it makes it harder for them to pursue their personal goals, and to take part in social and economic activity.
The National Development Plan’s Vision 2030 envisages a South Africa in which people feel safe and have no fear of crime. In this South Africa, people are safe at home, at school, at work and they enjoy an active community life free of fear. Women can walk freely in the streets and children play safely outside.
Achieving this Vision requires a well-functioning criminal justice system in which the police, the judiciary and correctional services work together to ensure that suspects are caught, prosecuted, convicted if guilty and securely incacerated.
There are five priorities to focus on to achieve a crime-free South Africa:
- Strengthen the criminal justice system
- Make the police service professional
- Demilitarise the police
- Build safety using an integrated approach
- Build community participation in community safety.
This is the vision and mission of the democratic government in building safer communities. The mandate of the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison has to give practical expression to the democratic government’s Vision 2030.
Programme Director,
In giving a concrete expression to this vision the Department has joined hands with other stakeholders on a door-to-door campaign in the Westernburg policing area with the aiming of mobilising and concientising the community against crime. This campaign has further given us a firsthand exposure to the conditions our people in Westernburg and surrounding areas are living.
It is important that ourselves and other stakeholders from time to time take a break from our offices and go out to communities like we did today for some reality-check. The exposure such as today ensures that our plans and projects are tempered by reality – it ensures that our plans and projects are not pies in the sky detached from the reality our people live every day.
Westernburg has in recent times been in the news for all sorts of wrong reasons. One of the wrong things that have found manifestation in the area is the escalation of crime. The management of the local police station will fill us in on the details of the crime situation and what is being done to bring the situation under control.
What we can however reveal at this stage is that the most threatening crimes in the Westernburg policing area are armed robbery, assault GBH, domestic violence and rape. Alcohol and substance abuse among the underage is also on the increase. Gangsterism is also rearing its ugly head with the potential of disrupting institutions such as schools.
What is even more worrisome is alcohol and substance abuse by the youth. If left unchecked, this anomaly will destroy the future of the children of the area.
It is against this backround that the Department and other stakeholders have descended into Westernburg with the aim of engaging stakeholders in the area and the community at large. A timely intervention like this one will go a long way in rolling back the frontiers of crime and to restore the neighbourhood back to the law-abiding members of the community.
Only by joining hands will we be able to achieve more in the fight against crime.
We are now moving into the second phase of our campaign. We have brought almost all our partners in the fight against crime to educate and empower the community in how the criminal justice system functions.
This session will among others expose us to the following:
- The crime situation in the area
- The Human Rights Culture in the country
- Bail application processes
- Terms and Conditions of Parole
- Sexual Crimes
- Alcohol and Drugs
- The Liquor Act
- The Processes of the Legal Aid.
This is a truly empowering exercise which will ensure that leaders and the general public are able to take their rightful positions at the forefront of the fight against crime. There is no way that we are can surrender our communities to criminals.
Today offers an opportunity to reclaim our communities from criminals back to ourselves. Let us seize this moment to make Westernburg too small and too hot for criminals.
Programme Director, ladies and gentlemen I wish you well in your deliberations. May the knowledge we are about to receive serve as our guide in building crime-free communities.
WORKING TOGETHER WE CAN DO MORE.
I thank you.
