'Broken promises’ and ‘a criminal society’: Fresh calls for Cele to be axed over latest crime stats

Several opposition parties have reiterated their call for President Cyril Ramaphosa to axe police minister Bheki Cele after an increase in crime statistics. 

On Friday the police ministry presented the quarterly crime statistics, showing an increase in crime rates from October to December 2022.

Murders increased by 10% over three months late last year. There were 7,555 murders committed between October and December. 

Arguments, road rage and provocation were the top causes, followed by vigilantism, revenge, robbery and gang-related crimes, most of which were recorded in the Western Cape.

According to the statistics, most murders were committed in public spaces, residences and liquor outlets and on buses.

KwaZulu-Natal recorded the highest number of murders (1,821), followed by Gauteng with 1,721 and the Eastern Cape with 1,501.

The Western Cape recorded 1,198 murders and other provinces fewer than 500 each.

“These crime statistics illustrate the complete failure of the management of the SA Police Service to strengthen crime intelligence and improve visible policing to prevent crime,” said DA MP Andrew Whitfield. 

“In Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address in 2019, he promised to halve violent crimes within 10 years but today the number continues to rise. His silence in his reply to the debate this year 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.”

The EFF said it was disappointed, claiming the police force is factionalised and corrupted by “a minister who is in bed with criminals”.

The red berets said Cele does not have the intellectual depth required to think through crime-fighting strategies, nor the basic operation competence to manage and strategically guide the police service. 

“We have become a criminal society and crime is enabled implicitly by the state. While the inequality and failure of the post-1994 neo-apartheid regime to create economic opportunities for the vast majority of our people are surely to blame, one major contributor to this chaos is the capture of the police service itself by rogue criminal elements from the top to the bottom.”

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said Cele is losing the war on crime and should lose his job for it. 

He said Cele spends more time courting the media at high-profile crime scenes in aid of his personal celebrity status than he does providing the requisite political leadership to reform the police service and turn the tide against crime.

“Given the perpetual rise in crime and violence in South Africa under successive ANC governments, the solution is undoubtedly the unseating of the ANC and their replacement with a caring government committed to restoring law and order so South Africans can begin to feel safe and not under siege in their own country, and in their own homes. 

“We cannot expect ordinary South Africans to refrain from criminal behaviour when being a criminal seems to be a minimum requirement for becoming a leader in the ANC.”

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