Criminals are at war with citizens, says KZN top cop Mkhwanazi

Criminals are at war with citizens and not just the police, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said when giving an update on crime statistics and trends in the province on Monday.

Between April and December 2024, 4,278 people were killed, including four police officers while on duty, while 105 suspected criminals were killed during shootouts with the police.

“The reality is that there were more people dying at the hands of the criminals than the criminals dying, so we have a problem with the type of criminals we have. They are going in for the kill and that’s a concern for us as the police and for society in general,” he said.

He once again responded to the sectors of society who have criticised KZN police for the number of criminals who die at their hands, saying the high incidents of such cases showed that criminals were “at war” with the citizens, not just the police.

Mkhwanazi questioned why people would make more noise about the 105 criminals who died in violent confrontations with the police over the thousands of innocent people who were murdered.

“Yes, everyone has the right to life, but the ones who cause terror ... Perhaps those rights must be limited. The innocents must be the ones that should be protected the most.”

Mkhwanazi was cautiously optimistic about the decline in violent crime in the province but acknowledged there was room for improvement in certain areas. 

He said the short-term goal was to reduce crime levels at the very leastto what they were in 2020 during the Covid-19 enforced lockdown which limited people’s movement. Murder and rape cases during this period stood at 3,501 and 4,954, respectively.

“We saw more cases of rape than murder in 2020 and the question might be why? That’s subject to some research and analysis that can be done to try to establish those factors.”

Mkhwanazi said overpopulation at correctional facilities was among the challenges they faced.

Another challenge was organised business robberies, mainly related to cash in transit heists and truck hijackings. He said truck hijacking is worsened by the presence of some of the biggest ports in the province, which carry the majority of cargo that is imported and exported.

Mkhwanazi pointed out that the reduction of serious crime is only one of three aspects of police work that determines the success of the department.

The other box the department needs to tick is being accountable for the implementation of government policies and directives.

“We can only evaluate that by seeing the audit outcomes. Once we get a clean audit, as a department, then I can be comfortable — but we’re not there yet. We want to reach that stage.”

The last, and “most important”, metric is ensuring that the public is satisfied with the police work.

“We can reduce crime, we can have clean audits, but if our client is not happy with our service that means we’ve not reached the level of satisfaction that we can be proud of.”

TimesLIVE