15 May 2017

Honourable Speaker
Minister of Police, Mr Bheki Cele
Honourable Ministers that are here today
Deputy Ministers
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, the Honourable Mr Francois Beukman
Honourable Members of Parliament
MEC’s from provinces
Police entities (CSP, IPID, SAPS, DPCI and PSIRA)
Members of civil society and labour movements
Esteemed guests
Comrades and Friends
Fellow South Africans

I rise in this People’s house this afternoon with a pained and heavy heart that today at this age, our country continues to bury its children, especially the girl child. Recently on the 1st May 2018, Zolile Khumalo a Mangosuthu University of Technology student was brutally killed, this was followed by the ruthless death of Katleko Joja, a 10-year-old child. This time last year we were mourning the death of a Walter Sisulu University student, Lwando Mantshontsho who died on the 12th May 2017. When he was killed he had only five months to go before graduating as a medical doctor. Unfortunately, these are not the only incidents of its kind in our country that has had to endure too many other horrendous incidences of a similar nature and if we continue along this path, it will not be the last.

Since these incidencies of the brutal killings of our children and our students at institutions of higher learning. On Friday, 11th May 2018, together with Minister Cele, we officially launched the Campus Safety program in the Tshwane University of Technology. Going forward we will embark on the roadshow to all institutions of higher learning with the aim of having campus safety dialogues.

In the same vein, we have partnered with the Ministries of Basic Education, Higher Education and Training and Social Development to re-organise the failed school safety summit that was supposed to be in 2011. Part of this School Safety Summit is to review the current school safety initiatives, for an example, we need to take action against the continued death of our children in pit toilets especially in rural areas. Therefore the school safety program should include amongst others, health safety and road safety.

Former President Nelson Mandela once said, a country that does not take care of its children, women, and the elderly has no future. We need to join all our efforts to defend the vulnerable, the weak and the threatened in our ranks.

Honourable members, in this year of the centennial of our stalwarts, Mama Sisulu and Tata Mandela, we stand before you to present the 2018/19 Budget Speech for Vote 20 and 23. We can also not forget that this year we mark 40 years since the death of one of our fearless leaders, baba Robert Sobukhwe.

As we reflect on the lives of these and other leaders, we commit ourselves to ensuring that what they stood for is realized during our lifetime and for generations to come. In life, as in death, their legacies, continue to remind us of our shared vision and what we stand for. They were consistent in promoting human rights and justice, throughout their lives. They advocated for a united South Africa free from the bonds of sexism, racism, and discrimination based on religion, class or any other arbitrary distinction.

The Apartheid police were at the center of ensuring that the narrow-prejudiced agenda of the National Party government and their puppets were implemented at all costs. They were at the center of harassing, torturing, denigrating, jailing and killing those who dare challenge their tyranny. We should not forget that even though they and the rest of the nation, faced these and other despicable acts, our leaders and many more of our unsung heroes and heroines stood tall and firm in upholding the principles of negotiations and peaceful protest. They stood steady in facing a brutal and ugly regime. The decision to fight fire-with-fire came as thousands of our people were killed during ostensibly peaceful protests. They responded by saying, and I quote the MK Manifesto, “there comes a time in the life of any nation where there remain only two choices, to submit or fight. That time has come to South Africa.”

We are dedicating this budget in honour of the women, children, the disabled and other vulnerable groups in our country. We understand and feel their pain and suffering whether in our own families, our churches and mosques, our schools and tertiary institutions, our social clubs, private and public-sector institutions and daily life on our streets. In this regard, we are calling for zero tolerance towards violence against these valuable groups of our society as we continue to receive disturbing news of the killing of young women students at our universities and colleges. As men, across all sectors of society, we should stand up and say to the nation, any man who is abusing a woman or girl child is not part of us and must face …. the full might of the law!

Honourable members let us not forget what our mothers and grandmothers stood for in the past decades and centuries: which is the full emancipation of women.

In this budget we recognise the sterling work done in policing by our predecessors since the dawn of our democracy. We remember and salute the contribution they have made towards ensuring that safety and security for all are a reality in South Africa.

Honourable Chair, as we speak today, we have received the following results from the 2016/17 report by Statistics SA. The Victims of Crime Survey reveals that, the proportion of households who believed that violent crime in their area had increased in the preceding three years, decreased between 2015/16 and 2016/17 following a period of consistent increases between 2011 to 2014/15. The percentage of households who felt that the level of violent crime has not changed also showed an upward trend during the period 2011 to 2016/2017.

There has been a general decline over time in the percentage of households who felt that property crime has decreased. This was accompanied by an increase until 2015/2016 in the number of those who believed that this type of crime was increasing, followed then by a slight decrease between 2015/2016 and 2016/17.

Between 2011 and 2016/2017, households generally felt safer walking alone in their areas of residence during the day than at night. However, feelings of safety have been declining, regardless of whether it is during the day or at night. In 2016/2017 about 84,8% of households felt safe in their area during the day (53,9% felt very safe and 30,9% fairly safe), while 15,2% felt unsafe when it was dark (10,6% felt a bit unsafe and 4,6% very unsafe). Honourable members, whilst a lot still need to be done, this is giving us a positive indication towards the NDP vision, where women and children are expected to walk free in our streets without any fear. It also shows us that we must further invest on basic services such as street lights etc.

In the previous budget, we undertook many tasks, including the following:

1. To engage with communities across the country with the aim of listening to and understanding their experiences, expectations, and challenges;
2. We planned to start a process of engagement on tertiary campus and school safety;
3. To undertake research in the murder capital of the country, Nyanga, WC