This story demonstrates why Western countries and other successful democracies function relatively well despite many governments often becoming very unpopular near the end of their terms (New Labour in the UK or the GOP in the US springs to mind). The electorate knows it can vote the scumbags out and the politicians in turn know that they have to earn the people's trust and not misbehave because they will have to account for their actions while in office.
Not so our baboons. They know they can count on the rest of the baboons in the troop to keep voting them back into power no matter what they do.
The changing of the guard, a new broom sweeping clean is what works allowing fresh blood to fix the house. The longer a party is entrenched, the deeper the corruption, the worse the bad practices are and the harder it becomes to shift it from power. Look at Africa, Iran, look at any country where a regime has been in power for an extended period of time then correlate that with the state of the nation. The only exception probably is China but then democracy has its limits and it would prove difficult to implement today in a country that large. As shown in Iran, sometimes a revolution is required to remove the incumbents because they know they face the guillotine when their corruption is exposed.
Back to this story, the DA has gained power in the Western Cape and already the evidence is there of the ANC's woeful performance while at the helm of the province. Given that the ANC is corrupt fullstop, it is a fair statement that one can extrapolate whatever is found in the Western Cape to be the same in the rest of the country. Your suspicions were well founded.
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CAPE TOWN, South Africa. More than 50 rape cases - some involving children as young as four - were never noted or investigated by police in the Western Cape because the police did not want their crime statistics to look bad, Community Safety MEC Lennit Max told the news media this week.
Max feared widespread manipulation of the crime-statistics in the Western Cape province. He found that police would record serious crimes under ‘less-serious’ categories.
It’s a concern which many crime-fighting organisations and besieged citizens in South Africa have suspected for years namely that the official crime statistics issued by the police service from its Pretoria headquarters are being grossly understated and manipulated.
In this case, the malpractice had been uncovered in the Western Cape province – however since the SA police is under the centralised control of the ruling ANC-party, such manipulations could well be taking place countrywide. Max 'flooded' with calls on alleged crime stats cover-up
He also said that provincial police commissioner Mzwandile Petros had been “either ignorant or dishonest” about the matter. Max made these allegations when he announced he had asked the police watchdog, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) to investigate these cases and other serious crimes that had been reported to police in the province but had allegedly not been investigated by police.
Max asked the ICD to probe the alleged manipulation of crime statistics at the Paarl, Paarl East, Mbekweni and Wellington police stations. Max says Petros told him previously that there was “nothing wrong” at the Paarl police station after allegations of malpractice surfaced and were investigated.
But last week a senior officer showed Max documents and sworn statements detailing the alleged manipulation of statistics at the Paarl police station which contradicted what Petros had said. Max said he had also received information from police officers at the four stations about statistics being tampered with.
According to the information he gathered, 56 rape cases reported in and around Paarl, dating back to January two years ago up to May this year had not been registered as criminal cases on the police’s database and officers had instead treated them as inquiries - meaning the rapes were recorded but not investigated.
At the Paarl East police station, 19 rape cases had been reported but allegedly not investigated. At the Mbekweni station, 16 reported cases had allegedly not been investigated. At Paarl, 13 reported rapes had allegedly not been investigated. In Wellington, eight cases appeared not to have been investigated.
“As a direct result of these malpractices, young victims were deprived of proper police investigations and perpetrators are walking free,” Max said.
Registered under less serious crime categories
He also said 27 cases, including burglaries and the theft of cars had been registered at the four police stations as malicious damage to property - a less serious crime - and 38 serious crimes, including fraud and robbery had instead been registered as theft. These specific crimes have since been re-registered accurately and are now being investigated.
For South African Police statistics, access their documents page on http://www.saps.gov.za
Max said allegations of crimes being recorded as less serious than they were had also surfaced at the Oudtshoorn police station and he feared the manipulation of crime statistics he had so far been notified of (Police have not posted new statistics since the end of 2007 yet refer to these statistics as dating from 2007/8).was only a fraction of what had occurred at the province’s 147 police stations.
As only station commissioners and cluster commanders at police stations had the authority to decide how a crime is classified, Max said this meant if allegations of manipulating statistics were true, senior officers were to blame.
The MEC said he had previously approached Petros about the possibility of crime statistics being tampered with, specifically at the Paarl police station but Petros had told him this had been investigated and that the allegations had been found to be false.
“He told me it was people just being malicious; that they had something against the directors and these were the only discrepancies found.”
Max has lodged a formal complaint with the ICD’s regional head, Thabo Leholo, about the alleged tampering with statistics. Source
Criminal complaints against police members rose by 71.7%
It’s not altogether surprising that the SA Police Service is understating the truth somewhat in regard to the crime statistics. The Independent Police Directorate has also had a busy four year period investigating criminal charges against police members which had soared by 71.7% from the previous four years:
- The IPD says in 2005/2006 there were 1,643 criminal complaints, in 2006/2007, it rose to 1 787 criminal charges, in 2007/8 it rose to 2,101 and the past year registered 2,289 official criminal complaints lodged against police members which had to be investigated.
- These charges included murder, attempted murder, rape, culpable homicide and serious criminal assaults, thefts and corruption.
The Freedom Front Plus spokesman for security Jan Groenewald said what is even more worrying is that only 51% of 2009 complaints – i.e. 1165 out of the 2,289, could actually be completed. There is a whopping 4,257 cases which still has investigations pending against police members. And once again, the SA Police Service refuses to release the latest statistics about this problem, he said. Source
By Adriana Stuijt (Censorbugbear Reports)
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