Note to editors: This is an extract from a speech delivered by DA leader Helen Zille at the Booysen's Park Community Hall in Port Elizabeth this morning. Helen was there to address residents on the DA's plans to improve local policing. Nelson Mandela Bay is the only metro in the country without a metro police service.

Last week, we launched our election campaign in Soweto. Yesterday, Patricia de Lille and I launched her mayoral campaign in Cape Town.

In between, I have been campaigning in the North West and in KwaZulu-Natal. And today we are here with you in Booysen's Park, Port Elizabeth.

I am delighted to be joined by our mayoral candidate for the Nelson Mandela Metro, Leon de Villiers, and our candidate for this ward, Patricia Njumane. Everywhere I go, I tell people the same thing: this election is not about race. This election is about delivery.

You have a clear choice in this election. You can choose a party that talks about delivering a better life for all. Or you can choose a party that is actually delivering a better life for all. Today, I want to focus on an issue that affects your community deeply. That is the issue of crime.

I want to tell you about the DA's approach to fighting crime. But I don't just want to talk about it. I want to show you how we have actually reduced crime where we govern. I read in the newspaper that five dead bodies have been found in Booysen's Park this year. Most of them were discovered by children.

And I read of the 15 year old boy and his gang that are terrorising residents in the Vastrap informal settlement. I hear that community members are so desperate to stop gangsterism and drug-dealing that they are taking matters into their hands.

It doesn't have to be like this in Booysen's Park. One of the problems here is that there is no metro police service. Port Elizabeth is the only major city in South Africa without metro police. We don't think this is fair. We think you deserve better.

In February 2010, a spokesperson from the Nelson Mandela Metro said, and I quote: "...the establishment of the Metro Police Service was identified as the number one priority and we will be investing a lot of time and energy into ensuring that the service becomes a reality."

That was more than a year ago. Your municipality has been promising you a metro police service for years. Announcements have been made, press releases have been issued and task teams have been set up. But still no metro police force.

That sums up the ANC: very good at talking about a better life for all, but very bad at delivering it. Establishing and expanding the metro police is a central plank in the DA's approach to crime-fighting at local level.

When we took over the City of Cape Town from the ANC in 2006, there was already a metro police service. But it was dysfunctional. It had been crippled by cadre deployment. The number of officers had been reduced by 800 members. One out of every four posts in the metro police service was vacant. There were severe shortages of equipment and specialised skills. The metro police had a reputation for corruption, inefficiency and ill-discipline.

The good metro police officers rarely received any recognition for they work they did, often in dangerous and difficult circumstances. Some had not received any form of recognition for 15 years. They had grown more demoralised as the force lurched from one scandal to another.

In our first 100 days in office, we used emergency funds to fill critical posts in the metro police. Extra money was allocated for police equipment. In our first financial year, the Metro Police received a bigger capital budget than it had had for the entire five years before that.

And we re-instated the annual policing awards function to commend officers who excelled in the line of duty. We steadily built the metro police into a force to be reckoned with.

Cape Town now has a metro police engaged in more real police work than any other metro police in the country. They don't just enforce by-laws. They go after the criminals that terrorise our communities. And they catch them.

The specialised units of the metro police focus on priority crimes. The Ghost Squad stop drivers who are speeding or driving while drunk. The Copperheads focus on metal theft. The Drug Busters raid the "tik" dens and drug houses that make it impossible for residents in those areas to live a decent life.

We have also introduced cutting-edge technology to help us win the war against crime. Our new Smart Cop system helps us track all our vehicles on a large screen at the dispatching centre, with every vehicle monitored to ensure that they are policing efficiently and effectively. Each vehicle is fitted with a touch screen computer unit containing GPS and a database of stolen vehicles and fire-arms.

We have also introduced Automated Number Plate Recognition technology that helps us find people with outstanding warrants, stolen vehicles, and vehicles with false number plates.

Since the DA took over Cape Town, crime in the city centre has been cut by 90%. Cape Town is the safest city in the country. Last year, there were 955 arrests for drug-related crime, compared to just 180 arrests five years previously in 2005. The expansion of the metro police, coupled with a massive investment in social infrastructure like parks, libraries and youth centres has cut down the murder rate in Khayelitsha by 33%.

The DA is quite open about the fact that there is an unequal distribution of Metro Police, Traffic and Law Enforcement resources in Cape Town. We think it is only right that the areas with the most crime should get the most police.

If the DA won the election here in Nelson Mandela's Bay, we would make the Metro Police a priority like we did in Cape Town. You too can have a lean, mean crime-fighting machine here in Port Elizabeth.

But it's up to you. You can choose a party that actually makes communities safer. Or you can choose a party that just talks about it. So, whatever you do, make sure you go out and vote on 18 May.

And vote DA.

Because the DA delivers for all!

Issued by the DA, April 3 2011

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