Speech by the Deputy Minister of Police, Fikile Mbalula, in the debate on President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address, Parliament, Monday, February 15 2010

The DEPUTY MINISTER OF POLICE: Hon Speaker, hon President, hon Deputy President, Members of Parliament, comrades and compatriots, what is the difference between the ANC and COPE? The difference is that it can't be about policies because they don't have any. The difference is that they hate President Gedleyihlekisa Jacob Zuma. That is the fundamental difference. With the DA, it's because it represents the past and backwardness and the ANC represents progressive ideas. 

We are in the year of action-packed time of our lives...

Setswana: ... mo kgabo e jang kgajwana. [Where it is the survival of the fittest].

English: We are steadily recovering from the global economic downturn that had a negative impact on the lives of our people; the economic phase that welcomed us to office in May 2009. The economic situation has seen petty crimes being committed during the first and second quarters of 2009, due to the global problem we found ourselves in as the new administration.

Serious crime itself also showed some ugly face; with malls in the Western Cape and Gauteng being primary targets, especially in the first quarter of 2009. Criminals became much more sophisticated. And to win the fight against crime, we needed to step up our game and be ahead of them - we needed to be even more sophisticated than them.  If we don't nip their actions in the bud, we'll find these criminals passing us twice on the same job. 

In response to these calculated actions by criminals, we introduced a Tactical Response Team in the efforts to combat crime. This cluster Tactical Response Team whose job is not to negotiate, but to fight, has trained officers who are and will always be visible in hostile situations and especially in our malls.  These are officers who get advanced training on how to handle crisis situations where the hard-nut-to-crack criminals have taken over the lives of the innocent, through ATM bombings, business robberies and random shooting in crowded areas.

We are on track in the fight against crime.  We are not going to claim easy victories. It is all systems go, with all the necessary ammunition in our hands to fight crime. 

We understand that the fight against crime does not need a one answer fits all. It requires a comprehensive approach. We are proactively responding to these dynamisms and realizing the prescripts of the constitution and the bill of rights which guarantees rights to security, life and dignity. We are fundamentally turning around the police through long-term results-driven vision, coupled with efficient measures. We are repositioning the department through a fundamental paradigm shift, enhanced optimal excellence, and unlocking the productive value.

Part of our ammunition in the fight against crime, is the sharpening of our tools, to ensure that all our agencies are fully supported by the legislation. That is why we talked about the amendment of section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act, and the relooking and reworking of the Forensic Bill. We would like to reiterate that we are not going to allow our detractors to blackmail us about their emphasis on shoot to kill as if this is a government policy or the amendment of section 49 as Alpha and Omega. We are not going to allow that.

We should reiterate that even before we talked about the amendment of section 49, in our quest to sharpen and strengthen the tools for fighting crime, the police, except in particular cases, have acted within the law and have taught criminals a good lesson. That is why we are saying we will deal with criminals with the agility of a cat and the ferocity of a cornered bull.

IsiXhosa: Basopa tsotsi! Lumka tsotsi! Washa tsotsi! [Beware tsotsi!]

English: The 2010 FIFA World Cup is here. It is your civic duty and mine to ensure that the country's image is intact.  It is our civic duty to ensure that all the visitors are welcome in South Africa. We owe this to those who fought for freedom and peace in our country. We owe this to the 20th Anniversary of the Release of President Mandela.

With Madiba's smile, the country is expecting 32 World Cup qualifying countries for this greatest showpiece in the world. For the first time on the African soil, we will be welcoming millions of people within our shores.  We are hopeful that Bafana Bafana will do us all proud!

The task ahead is enormous. The constitution provides for us to safeguard the South African inhabitants and those within our shores.  We have a constitutional obligation to ensure that all the guests, during this soccer showpiece, just as it has been the case with previous other major events, are safe and are able to enjoy the game of millions.

We have been in serious self-evaluation of our ability to arrest any unwanted threatening situations in our midst, especially during the World Cup.  Among others, we have inspected the ports of entry in this country, and we say to all South Africans we are going forward and not turning back. All systems go! We are ready! South Africa is the destination for 2010 this year!

We are happy to announce that our airports have been inspected and all the concerns raised and noted during these inspections have been addressed. Together, working with Interpol and the Southern African Police chiefs, we believe and we are satisfied that it is all systems go.

Operation Washa Tsotsi has brought us successful results in reducing violent and serious crimes that have been evident in previous festive seasons. It is only those who don't have ears to listen and eyes to see who would not have seen the visibility of the police during the past festive season.

The night raids in troublesome spots like KwaMashu in KwaZulu-Natal, Alexandra and other areas, was through efforts to reduce a number of guns in circulation and those in wrong hands.  We are happy with the outcomes of the operation. We won't rest until our country is free from criminality. Operation Washa Tsotsi, like we said before, is not an event, but a continued attack on the criminals in our streets.

The police are recording successes on a daily basis in the fight against crime. The Directorate for Specialised Crimes Unit, The Hawks, has identified and profiled 10 most wanted criminals. And we are happy to report that seven of those have been dealt a blow and three are still on the run, but we will find them.

Since the launch of the Festive Season Campaign, we have seen and witnessed the successful operations by our police. We uncovered the drug syndicate that is operating in South and North America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Security for our inhabitants and their properties is our priority through the commitment of the SAPS and other agencies.

We urge communities to stop buying stolen goods in the name of poverty. We urged everyone to understand that you are really criminals yourselves if you find yourself owning something that you don't know how it had gotten in the hands of those that sold it to you. That is why we are saying...

Sesotho:... tlohelang dintho tsa boshodu batho ba haeso!

English: Someone's house has been broken into and a television set got stolen and you willingly buy it. We need to unite against crime and criminals. We need positive role models in our society and within the environment where we live.

Everything you get should be through hard work. It can be important that for all of us that we understand that message. We need to embrace the values of hard work instead of short cuts to richness, disregarding the law in the name of materialism.  Crime does not pay; this is an old saying that continues to live within us. In many of the crimes, especially serious crimes, like house robberies, there is a huge element of youth involvement. These are young people who have admired wrong role models within our societies. 

The fight against crime should not and must not be relegated to the police alone, it is a civic duty.  That is why we say, when you are in the comfort of your home with your families, remember the lives of the police, woman and men, in the streets protecting you.  We ask you to pray for them every time you pray for our streets to be rid off bad elements.

We want everyone to join the fight against crime including bomme ba seaparo. We urge them that whenever they pray for Pula they should also pray to reduce crime in our midst.  In our mothers we are certain we will win.   

The society should embrace and support the police. As we said before they carry a heavy load that needed our undivided support. But that does not mean that we must conceal those with evil intentions within the SAP. As it has been said and lamented, we are not lamenting and sitting on our laurels, we are on top of the situation. Every corner from now onward criminals know that they don't have any holiday in South Africa. We are very much encouraged by the fact that we are on top of them.

Police themselves have acted by example by arresting criminal elements who are perpetrating within the police and we need to applaud such actions. 

Community Safety Forums is an important vehicle in the fight against crime. 

In November last year, this parliament approved our request to declare, in line with the Firearms Control Act of 2000, the period between the 11 January - 11 April 2010 a Firearm Amnesty Period. We are happy to announce that so far, through the selfless service of our men and women in blue as well as active participation from our communities, more than 105 000 firearms and ammunitions have been destroyed in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape.  From a crime prevention point of view, the destruction of these firearms and ammunitions translates to a direct opportunity cost to the marauding criminals who could have laid their hands on them and directed their barrels and gunpowder to rob, maim and kill law abiding citizens of our country.

Through this campaign, we are encouraging also those gun owners with legal firearms but who feel that they no longer need the firearms to freely submit them at their nearest police stations. And further urge all those with information about where we can retrieve any firearm or ammunition and arms caches to report the matter at the police station. 

It should be noted that even though this is an Amnesty Period it does not mean the job of Police Officers to hunt and retrieve stolen and illegal firearms and ammunition has stopped.  We are confident that when the World Cup finals start in June the number of these weapons will be reduced drastically.

We would like to thank all those who have positively heeded our call to surrender their unwanted firearms and ammunition, be it Manufacturers, dealers, Gunsmiths, Gun owners, beneficiaries and tsotsis. Of course for tsotsis, this will mark the beginning of yet another chapter, because each submitted and surrendered guns will still undergo ballistic testing to ensure proper accountability and ramification in the event the gun was ever used in any criminal activities.

There is currently a process to incorporate some of the Reservists into the Police Force as fully-fledged Police Officers. Those incorporated will still undergo basic Police Training with no compromise on quality, because we have inherited the apartheid legacy of bloubaadjies and the ZPs within the police force, and we are training quality to ensure that going into the future, we are having a mean machine of the SAP force.

Effective contemporary crime prevention relies on partnership and multi agency approaches. We are building partnership with communities and government. People to join the war against crime. In this regard we have had engagements and processes identified in the fight against crime within our society. Young people, everyone within society and all the stakeholders including business have endorsed government plans in partnering with government in the fight against crime.

I want to turn to the point of ensuring that, there are a number of distortions that have been paraded in the name of political intervention, which some of the things that have been said, is nothing else but existing the figmentation of imagination of some individuals who have actually spoken before. We need to make a point and say that when Max the MEC of DA in the Western Cape, is doing something, we are told that his life must be understood to be private. The only life that must not be private is the life of the President. We need to understand that this is hypocrisy of the worst order and opportunism that reflect backwardness in the politics of our opposition in our country.

We need to also make a point that President De Klerk for everything that we have acknowledged that he has done, he did not wake up on the 2nd April and decided to be kind to our people and release President Nelson Mandela. It was the tireless efforts of our people in our streets to liberate themselves. [Applause.] There is nothing wrong, is neither the side-stepping of history what Julius has said, it is the correct interpretation of history. Our people have liberated themselves, led by their vanguard movement - the ANC. [Applause.] Nobody can claim its victories and tell lies as if our people did not have the intentions and when 2nd February arrived, they were not on the streets fighting to liberate themselves. The people have liberated themselves and the policies of the ANC, have not actually failed.

We need to also talk about the question of the cadre policy. When the cadre policy is not applicable to the DA because since you arrived in Cape Town you have expelled everybody who is black and replaced them with your own cadres. [Applause.] You've got a very skewed and racist cadre policy that you have implemented across the length and breadth of this particular province.

You are patronising our people and you are entrenching politics of racism. You are implementing a policy of skewed development. Why are Khayelitsha and Gugulethu in tatters and you continued to patronise particular groups within the Western Cape? You have failed our people and in no time you will be seen for what you are.

Newspaper headlines do not represent the dominant view of the South African people which says President Zuma you are on track [Applause.] and that what you must understand. The dominant view of the newspaper headlines is factored by the ideological inclination of the right-wing politics of the DA because you write those headlines yourselves. [Applause.] So your hypocrisy by saying that the newspaper headlines dominate the South African populist view about how they feel about government, go to the slumber land because you are very late for what you stand for. [Laughter.] That is the reason why in the debate when you talk about morality because you cannot stand tall, among yourself you can't speak about it and you opted to send the youngest poor honourable Mazibuko. [Laughter.] You must understand that as a young person you are uncooked to basically to discuss the ... that is the beginning of the rich African culture which we are not going to compromise.

Teach young people the correct history and proper culture; give them proper upbringing because this is about family socialisation. Do not throw them in the deep end and allow them to question things that they are not qualified to talk about. [Applause.]

To the hon Mfundisi wam, Bishop Dandala       

IsiXhosa: Mfundisi, uyihambile indlela oyihambileyo, kodwa ke ikhona into yokuba kuthiwe umntu ukhe ahambe alahleke. Masikubuyise sithi...

English: ... The State of the Nation was not about poems and philosophising about something in the distant horizon. It was about what we want to do today. If you were not filled with hope with what President Zuma had told you and not fed you poems ...

IsiXhosa: Mfundisi uxolo, ulahlekile tata.

English: We must understand that the down turn we have found ourselves in, is not of our own making, it is an objective reality. Don't speak about the recession that is our own creation. The ANC government under the stewardship of President Zuma is committed to the creation of jobs and there is no shift and no retreat. Neither an apology about what we said about the creation of 500 000 jobs. We said what was feasible that we were going to do, but our plans is relation to that... you must understand this in a dialectical form ... [interjection.] and understand things in their changing form. Nothing is static and if you live in the world where everything is static then you live in the land of the dead whilst walking.

We must not be afraid of debate of nationalisation. The debate about nationalisation is not the redefinition of any ANC policy. It is a debate that is raised by a youth organ of the African National Congress. We do understand your trauma because you don't have youth organisations like ours [Laughter.], so because you live in organisations were everything is alpha and omega and you have killed your own youth, that is why your youth have crossed to the ANC. [interjection.] Malema is the only jewel that we have and is the only thing that you don't have. [Interjection.] That is why you are crying foul because you are jealous. Jealousy is an enemy of success, [Laughter] so when the Youth League raises privatisation you think that is something new. In the ANC we have grown in the culture of vibrant debate in the organisation.

Once Helen Zille has spoken all is said and done, baie dankie, goeie more ja ja [Laughter] everything is over. There is no vibrant voice and that is why you go right-wing without looking backwards because you don't have a vibrant voice within your own organisation. Thanks to the ANC for having created the Youth League, please continue to defend its autonomy. They are fighting among themselves and tearing one another asunder and yet they want to teach us about anything. The ANC has long been. Even those who wanted to kill the ANC by forming fashionable organisations, they have not actually succeeded.

Utata Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, I just want to say that we are not making police to be trigger happy, all what we are saying is that we are not fraternising with crime and criminals. That is all that we are doing. We are empowering the police and all the system to ensure that we deal correctly and decisively with crime.

Honourable Hilda Ndude from the Congress of whatever, [Laughter] we talk about the issue of morality. Our President has owned up to everything that he has done. [Interjection] He could have chosen not to own up to everything and even apologise. The moral bankruptcy that you are talking about is the one of those just not far from your eyes who had not owned up to their actions. [Laughter] Please, you must learn to support your own children before you can throw stones everywhere. [Laughter] The State of the Nation was not about whether the President had this or not, it was about the future of our country and what we represent. It is not about the church that you are preaching that Reverend Meshoe will disagree with you. He was very short even on the question of morality today. You must basically own up to what you have done. The Constitution of South Africa provides for equal rights for all South Africans to practice their cultural beliefs and you reducing morality to certain cultural practises.

Moral values should be tested with the ability to build non racial, non sexist and prosperous society. [Applause.] It is what morality and moral values should be about. The fact of the matter is that nothing is concealed because like the Chinese say, you must extract the truth from the facts. Hon Mandla...  

The SPEAKER: Hon member, your time has expired. [Applause.] Hon. members, you will be pleased to know that that concludes the debate. The President will reply to the debate tomorrow. The House is adjourned, enjoy the rest of the evening.

Source: Unrevised transcript, Hansard

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