Ian Cameron. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
The problems facing the South African Police Service (SAPS) have nothing to do with incompetence, believes Ian Cameron, a DA MP and chairman of the parliamentary committee on police.
He believes incompetence is a “secondary issue”.
The primary cause? State looting.
“We have incredible people still working in the police force. These police officers work in extremely difficult conditions,” Cameron told the online business newspaper this week. Biznews said his conference in Hermanus.
“They often have to work with colleagues they don’t trust. Then they are expected to confront sophisticated crime networks, even though they don’t necessarily have the systems that those very crime networks have access to.”
(Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
“So I don’t think we have a shortage of good people who are capable of policing. The problem is that the whole institution, the police, the Hawks, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the whole security group, has been hollowed out over time,” Cameron explained.
“I am telling you today that the majority of the hollowing out was absolutely intentional, it was absolutely deliberate, because the ANC and the crime cartels linked to the party cannot function as they should to loot the state coffers if they do not control the police.
“So they have to hollow it out. They have to make sure that it doesn’t function, because otherwise they wouldn’t have money to steal.”
“We must understand that when these institutions are weakened, it literally opens the state coffers for further looting.
“And if the police service had remained strong and not been deliberately paralyzed, I honestly believe that we would be in a much better situation than we are now.”
Blame it on Jackie Selebi
(Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
Cameron believes Jackie Selebi, former national police commissioner, was one of those who “started digging the police’s grave” at the time.
“He disbanded specialist units, he was involved in disbanding the commandos and although the commandos in my opinion were not the magic solution to fix things, it gave a kind of state efficiency, capacity, and a kind of statutory capacity within rural communities,” said Cameron.
“Selebi was later, as we know, also a member of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) while he was the national police commissioner of the police.”
“The Border Management Authority is slowly but surely becoming the cleanest, even though it is one of the smallest, but one of the cleanest law enforcement authorities in the country under the leadership of Leon Schreiber as Minister of the Interior.
“Leon told me the other day that some of the syndicates that operate in domestic affairs have been operating for over two decades. That gives you an idea of how well established, how institutionalized some of this corruption and organized crime has become. So I’m telling you that the problems we face have nothing to do with incompetence.”
Why disarm law-abiding South Africans?
“Should law-abiding citizens be disarmed in a country where the state itself struggles to guarantee your safety?” Cameron wanted to know from the audience.
This issue is very close to his heart, he explained.
Some argue that the solution to violence is simply to place an ever greater obligation and burden on those who own firearms. “But it basically means that those who actually follow the law are punished for doing so, and those who are involved in arms trafficking and everything else that we see happening around us… they just continue to do what they have to do.
“Treating firearms as the same policy problem as, say, some would argue, alcohol and cigarettes is a massive mistake. It’s simply not practical.
“And we have to ask the question: Why do they really want to implement disarmament? What is the real reason? Because there is no scientific or research-driven indication from anyone to this point that legally armed citizens are the reason for the increase in violent crime.”
“This narrative is completely false,” says Cameron.
“I’m sorry to say, but the day they disarm a law-abiding population, we have much bigger problems than we realize. That day is the day they (the state) will allow terrorism, and good people in the country will bear the consequences of their efforts to constantly centralize power and then of course hurt those they are supposed to serve.”
(Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)