SA shot itself in the foot in Swat Challenge

I CAME across an article that was absolutely shocking and heartbreaking, about the competence of the South African special task force while taking part at an international competition called “Swat Challenge” hosted in Dubai recently by the UAE where 50 countries were taking part and competing against each other in a five-day event.

This elite unit of ours has always been regarded as one of the best in the world as they had maintained high standards and performed on par with leading police units globally. Unfortunately our team was placed 44th out of the 50 teams.

Some of their scores were pathetic, to say the least – as, for example, in the “assault event”, where shooting skills were tested.

The South African team was placed 47 and completed the event in seven minutes, while the Dubai police team, which was placed first, completed it in two minutes.

In another event, the “officer rescue challenge”, the South Africa team took more than 15 minutes to complete the challenge and was ranked 45th, while the Kuwait swat team was placed first for completing it in under four minutes.

The rest of the events in the five days of the competition went the same way, as the SA team was lagging behind all other teams.

The fact that our special task force fared so poorly is indicative of the level to which they have deteriorated, and it raises huge concerns about the state of readiness to respond to crimes and attacks on the country and its people.

I was not overly surprised by the results, when it is public knowledge that we have 56 murders a day and that crime in every category is rocketing, because whatever the ANC has taken over or touched in the past 25 years, as we all know, has gone to pot.