Advice for Mbalula on crime

I REFER to Police Minister Fikile Mbalula’s exhortation to banks and cash-in-transit companies to beef up their security (“Spike in cash heists”, The Star, November 8).

In all fairness to him, Minister Mbalula arguably has the most difficult portfolio in the country, given that crime is synonymous with South Africa.

His task becomes all the more difficult given that he inherited a largely corrupt, dysfunctional and underpaid SAPS in which there are many rotten apples giving the entire force a bad name.

These days some men-inblue are even moonlighting as traffic cops at night to cash in on bribes.

Long before the term “captured” became a shibboleth of our political discourse, the country was captured by crime.

Instead of chastising the banks and cash-in-transit companies, the minister should be asking himself where all the high calibre firearms are coming from.

Where are all the police uniforms worn by criminals coming from?

And why and how do police dockets just disappear so that solvable crimes become cold cases?

The state has made it almost impossible for ordinary citizens to acquire personal firearms yet illegal, high-powered firearms proliferate.

I urge the minister to set up a crack intelligence unit, somewhat like the Internal Affairs department in the US, to track down these firearms, as well as to weed out the rotten elements from the police force.

I don’t think the taxpayer would begrudge the minister if he were to ask the government to bump up his budget. Parkmore