Diverting attention
PREMIER Helen Zille’s response, “Premier set on fighting alcohol abuse, improving lives” (March 6, 2015), refers.
It is not suggested that when a crime is committed, police and the courts should not act efficiently and effectively, however, the ISS-Africa crime stat fact sheets state that there are a large number of crimes police cannot be expected to prevent.
In the response from Premier Zille, there is no acknowledgement that her government has the biggest role to play in creating safety. Instead we witness blatant attempts at trying to divert attention away from its responsibility on to the police.
Premier Zille, if you are indeed “committed” to curbing alcohol abuse, please answer why you are not using your political influence on your colleagues in the city to force them to follow recommendations made by the head of your own Health Department, Professor Craig Househam, to reduce the city’s liquor trading hours for licensed pubs and liquor stores, and have the Liquor Authority heed objections to liquor licence applications from communities suffering from high levels of social ills, while getting social workers to play a more prominent role in creating safer communities.
For Zille to simply state that parents must take responsibility and stop abusing alcohol highlights why the Cape has one of the highest rates of alcohol dependency in the world.
Addiction by its very nature means the addict is in denial.
We are pleased that the shortage of social workers is not as bad as is reported, which leaves no excuse regarding why researchers have found that the DSD’s social workers simply don’t come out over weekends, at night and are not dealing with long-standing domestic violence cases.
Reversal of apartheid spatial planning is not the reinforcing of apartheid mass transport links and creating separate business districts for different “racial” groups.
To spell it out, reversing apartheid spatial planning is making housing opportunities available in areas from where previously disadvantaged people were forcibly removed.
If the media has incorrectly quoted Community Safety MEC Dan Plato about gang-related murders, he and the provincial government should clearly acknowledge responsibility to reduce the extremely high rate of substance abuse that exposes children to gang recruitment. Lester September