Dear Editor
Not since the dawn of democracy in 1994, has South Africa ever been in such a violent, murderous and bloody war against crime as we are today. It is a war which is being completely and utterly lost due to a vacuum in crime intelligence, poorly trained police officers and under-resourced police stations across the country.
The latest release of the crime statistics for the third quarter of 2022/23, for the period October to December 2022, reveals the unabated slaughter of South Africa’s citizens. For the first time in South Africa’s history, murders increased above 80 murders and rapes above 135 rapes every single day.
In what other country in the world would a Police Minister still keep his job under such circumstances?
Some of the worst statistics revealed include:
- 7 555 murders (82.1 per day) (increased from 74 per day)
- 15 545 sexual assaults (169 per day) (increased from 154 per day)
- 50 582 Assault with G.B.H. (550 per day) (increased from 505 per day)
- 37 829 violent robberies (411.2 per day) (increased from 371 per day)
With the previous release of the crime statistics, Bheki Cele said that it was “not a good time to be a woman” in South Africa. Today, it is even worse.
In Q3 of 2022, Gender Based Violence and Femicide skyrocketed:
- 1101 murders (12 every single day and an increase of 199 from the last year Q3)
- 1636 attempted murders (17.8 per day and an increase of 396 from last year)
- 17 271 assaults (187.7 per day and an increase of 1579 from last year)
A horrific escalation in mass shootings further exposes the complete failure of crime intelligence to prevent the circulation of illegal firearms and to anticipate these terrifying incidents. In quarter 2 between July and September 2022 578 murders in 250 cases of mass shootings were reported and in the 92 days of quarter 3, 294 mass shootings took place, killing 665 people.
These crime statistics illustrate the complete failure of the management of the South African Police Service to strengthen crime intelligence and improve visible policing to prevent crime. In Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in 2019, he promised to halve violent crimes within 10 years but today it continues to rise. His silence in his reply to the SONA debate this week is as good as an admission of defeat in the war against crime.
As we fast approach the halfway mark to yet another broken promise, violent crime is on its way to being double, not half, within the 10 years.
It is time for Ramaphosa to drop Cele, appoint a capable Minister and devolve policing powers to capable provincial and local governments to get the job done.
Regards
Andrew Whitfield MP
DA Shadow Minister of Police
According to Cele:
A total of 7555 people were killed in South Africa between October and December 2022, said Police Minister Bheki Cele.
The 10% increase was on Friday released by the Minister while publishing the 2022/23 third quarter crime statistics. The period is between October and December.
He said: “Out of the 7 555 people murdered in the three months of reporting, 3 144 people were killed with a firearm, 2 498 people were killed with other weapons such as knifes, sharp and blunt instruments, bricks and in many cases bare hands.”
He said this was a clear indicator that “a broader conversation must be had about what is at the heart of violent crime in the country”.
While gun violence is problematic and poses a serious threat to lives and livelihoods, an analysis of current and previous statistics, he said, illustrates that firearms were only part of a bigger problem.
“At the core of the matter, is human behaviour. We have to be honest as South Africans about the causes of violence and address them.”
He attributed high unemployment rates and poverty levels, mushrooming informal settlements with little to no services and other socio economic ills breeding criminality as leading contributors.
Other attributors included the high number of undocumented foreign nationals that were hard to trace after the commission of a crime.
“The violence that is stalking communities is translated to increased number of assaults, which escalate to attempted murders and in some cases murder.
“The reality is assaults are feeders of domestic violence and other violent crimes,” he said.
The Minister called for an “intense community centered” and intelligence led-solution to fully address the proliferation of firearms.
“Someone somewhere, somehow, knows something.
Police are also on the pulse in removing illegal weapons off our streets,” he said.
In the past twelve months alone, police had permanently removed and destroyed 65 519 firearms.
Minister Cele said the South African Police Service (SAPS) would continue to intensify operations to detect and remove illegal firearms and ammunition, whilst legislation intervention through the Amendment to the Firearms Control Act, to address the availability of guns from communities, was underway.
| Crime Category | Figures |
| Carjacking | 2.8% |
| Robbery at Residential Premises | 8.6% |
| Robbery at Non-Residential Premises | – 3.0% |
| Robbery of Cash-In-Transit | -5.0% |
–SAnews.gov.za
