It has been a year since the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) following last year’s elections. Appropriately so, many are conducting audits and analyses on the 10-party coalition government’s performance following the wave of optimism it ushered in just 12 months ago.
Many citizens looked forward to a visible and tangible change in trajectory, with the hope that the whole would indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. Bringing long-standing political foes together offered a new standard of accountability and a consensus-style government.
The mood appears to have shifted significantly in the nation’s collective conscience. Because what the GNU has delivered in its first year is inertia, infighting, and indulgence.
In my party’s analysis, we labelled it 12 wasted months. This is of course a comparison to the “nine wasted years” sobriquet conjured up about former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure as president. Twelve wasted months because on nearly every available metric and data point, there has been no progress.
The economy is flat, barely growing at 0.8%. Unemployment — almost 500,000 more without a job since the GNU took office. Basic education remains a failing ANC policy continuing under a different party’s minister. Corruption continues unabated with no arrests and no prosecutions.
The most glaring and gut-wrenching of these failures, however, is how crime is treated and dealt with by the national government. The latest national crime statistics for the fourth quarter of 2024/2025 (January to March 2025) paint a devastating picture of life under the GNU.
Sixty-four murders a day
In just 90 days, 5,727 people were murdered, an average of 64 murders per day. Attempted murders stood at 6,985, or 78 per day. Rape cases reached 10,688, meaning 119 people are raped daily, while 8,872 assaults were recorded — nearly 99 people assaulted every day.
And 43,776 cases of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) were reported, averaging 487 such brutal attacks each day.
These are families, men, women and children who are affected by an inability to counter the root causes of crime and to instil a culture of consequence for wrongdoing. But the GNU sends other signals.
It allocates R2-billion this year alone for VIP protection for members of the GNU. This is equal to the entire annual budget of the Hawks, and more than what is allocated to the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit.
It boasts a National Prosecuting Authority in name only as virtually no progress has been made in prosecuting those implicated in grand corruption, including those named in the Zondo Commission report. Accountability remains elusive, and the architecture of impunity remains intact.
A comprehensive, brand-new approach to addressing crime needs to quickly fill the vacuum that is being occupied by criminals and opportunists. It begins by removing the racial and political charge that engulfs any conversation about crime in South Africa.
Crime is not a political issue, as many wish to frame it. Johann Rupert had to remind DA leader John Steenhuisen of that fact for all the world to see in the Oval Office last month.
Crime is not a racial matter either, no matter how many try to mould that narrative. The campaign around farm murders is one attempt to racialise crime. But this “facts don’t care about your feelings” right-wing sentimentality directly imported from the US is duplicitous. The facts really aren’t their friends in this matter.
The latest quarterly South African Police Service (SAPS) statistics show that 12 farm murders were recorded out of a total of 6,953 reported killings, with one being a farmer. That means 0.1% of murders occurred on farms.
False narrative
It is the moral responsibility of every rational thinking person with influence to challenge and defeat this false narrative every time it rears its ugly head.
Once we achieve de-politicising and de-racialising the issue, we can progress to the nuts and bolts of what to do about crime. And the answer is decentralisation.
Communities know who the tsotsis are, where they live and how they operate. Despite this local knowledge, all policing is organised and directed from central in Pretoria. This is the reason we can’t catch and convict criminals.
A one-size-fits-all approach isn’t working, and it is straining police-citizen relations. It is clear from data that our policing system is deteriorating, and it is clear from public sentiment that citizens feel unsafe and don’t trust the police to combat crime.
Decentralising the police can occur in a number of ways. First, through the formation of small regional and municipal police forces with a strong volunteer component and the additional authority to deputise private security providers with peace-officer status.
In addition, policing needs to be decentralised by devolving police powers to the provinces and municipalities that will be able to raise their own police forces made up both of permanent officers and well-trained community volunteers. Accountability to communities would be enforced by making the office of station commander an elected position by the community that a police station or agency serves.
Well-functioning forensic services
The private sector must be enlisted to provide well-functioning forensic services, laboratories, and databases, so criminal justice is not delayed or denied because of inadequate forensic work.
Then, establish better cooperation and working relationships between police forces and private security providers, including the power to deputise private security officers to perform certain basic police duties.
Lastly, a specialist investigative and prosecutorial team must be created, with the sole focus of hunting down, apprehending, and convicting a list of the nation’s 100 most-wanted violent criminals. This list will be continually updated and will target the country’s most notorious crime syndicates and street gangs.
The quality of any society is reflected by the safety and security of its most vulnerable members. African societies where young children play freely, express themselves wholeheartedly, while learning in nurturing environments, best reflect the freedom we so dearly fought for.
Sadly, too few parts in this country know this type of freedom to be a norm. Our mission is to build a safe, secure and crime-free South Africa for all its citizens. DM