Durban — eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda has called for a review of the Constitutional law and some policies as they “elevate criminals more than the victims”.
Kaunda was speaking at the Anti-Crime and Social Cohesion Summit on Tuesday held in the Durban Exhibition Centre. He said there was something wrong with the Constitution.
“If you are not rich, our justice system puts you away, but when you are rich it embraces you and we must correct that,” he said.
Kaunda said the purpose of the summit was to share ideas on how to collectively address the crime in the city.
He said criminals had more rights than victims. He added that it was not good that police officers must defend society, defend themselves, the Constitution and end up being victims of the law.
“When police officers shoot criminals in defence of the residents they are prosecuted. They have all these processes that they have to go through. These policies need to change. We are not saying police must shoot people, however, they have been trained, and they know when to pull the trigger and what to do at what time,” said Kaunda.
He encouraged a strong alliance between communities, businesses and police in achieving the goal of creating the goal of a safe environment for all. He said such collaboration was critical given the grim picture of the recently released crime stats.
Moreover, Kaunda said Durban was a beautiful city but the crime in it did not complement its beauty. He said South Africans were not xenophobic nor Afrophobic.
He said some criminal elements were hiding under the xenophobic or Afrophobic banner whenever the communities stood up for themselves.
“If the citizens of this country were xenophobic there would not be a mayor Kaunda. My father came into this country when he was just 18 years and he was able to raise us and even got citizenship,” said Kaunda.
Talking about the safer city initiative programme, Kaunda said the aim was that in 2030 people should feel safe.
“The national development plan says that by 2030 everyone living in South Africa should feel safe in their communities, workplaces and schools,” he said.
He said there must be programmes where schools from different countries met to play games and build relations without discriminating against one another because of their colour.
“Wounds of the past have not healed and that is why there must be dialogues on social cohesion,” said Kaunda.
Major-General Thokozani Mathonsi, head of the Social Crime Prevention Unit within SAPS, who is leading the Safer City Initiative programme on behalf of the national commissioner, said to fight crime a fully functional government-dedicated structure was needed. He also said the right people were needed to do the job.
He said this programme was aimed at reducing crime and violence through smart policing to ensure that people felt safe within the city/district precinct and created a safer environment conducive for economic growth. He said some of the integrated crime prevention strategies were victim support, early intervention, active public and community participation and effective and integrated service delivery.
Mathonsi said the implementation of smart cities needed community involvement, skilled people, digital infrastructure, smart city plans and partnerships.
He said the implementation would go through four stages.
“Linkage of the system, assessment of what is there and what works and what needs fixing cover 50% of identified hot spots and prioritised areas. By 2024, some should be done and this is realistic. However, for this to happen, implementation and resources are needed,” said Mathonsi.
He added that the private security companies were on board with assisting in this programme.
Daily News