You asked, I did my bit...now its your turn Mr P

After a weekend of rugby highs and Lucky Dube's murder lows, I find myself compelled to write about the latter...and I am a HUGE rugby fan. I saw Lucky Dube in concert a number of times and it is a tragedy to have a man of his talent taken away from us.

In his world cup departure speech President Thabo Mbeki stated that he wished all of us to stand together and to help in the fight against crime. It is a phrase that has been thrown into every speech on crime and I would like to examine it. What does he mean exactly? Should we all become cops? Should we all stake out a corner on dodgy streets to snap photos of hijackers in action? I hope not. That would be promoting vigilantism and chaos.

So hopefully he means report crimes to the police when they happen and simply be a responsible citizen. I don't think anyone would NOT be doing these things already and this can't be the central problem facing police. I think the average South African is careful, vigilant, knows that 10111 is the number to call and won't hesitate if they are threatened. Hell people are even closing their suburbs off and building higher walls and installing tracking devices into their cars to deter criminals. People have organised marches against crime, demanded that more be done about crime to the point where Mr Ngakula, the safety and security minister, told parliament no less that South Africans who 'whinge' about crime should leave the country. So mixed signals are being sent out from those in power. Can the good people of South Africa do more or is that an empty request being used to divert attention from the real issue?

I guess it is all about priority. Where is crime and the will to fight crime on the government’s national agenda right now? Somewhere behind the transformation of our rugby team and the succession battle and that is probably why we have a problem spiralling out of control. Sort out the crime you get easier transformation anyway, you get stability, investment, you plug the brain drain, you promote reconciliation, you collect more tax from the newly invested foreign nationals which goes into HIV roll-outs, better health care and education all providing economic growth thereby further reducing crime.

If government really wanted to get those stats down and cut this nonsense out they could. They are, however, taking a half-hearted stab at it because most of them seem to share the thinking that pops up periodically…its all because of our past. Even if that was 100% true, and I do not buy that for a second, it is still simply an excuse from people who are not performing in their job. Excuses at the top level are not tolerated in the corporate world for non-performance, why should they be tolerated in government?

So I believe that Mbeki's speech was just rhetoric to be seen to be dealing with the issue of Lucky Dube's shooting in front of his children. Now just in case I was wrong and our president does, in fact want my help, I have put down a few ideas since none seem to be forthcoming from the guys in charge…

1) Get smart! Hire bright dedicated people into the police force and out-think the criminals. It worked superbly for SARS and paid itself off in no time. Why not the police? Why were they prepared to pay big salaries at SARS? To make more money out of tax, of course! Well, there will be an economic benefit if you sort out crime too, just not as obvious. Involve universities, business and communities. Out-think them. It is a radical problem needing a radical solution that may be complex and strategically involved.

2) Organise. Police stations should not be spending man-hours doing admin for the public when we have a crisis on the go. They should be focused on solving crime. Get rid of jobs that do not contribute to the cause like signing affidavits and making certified id book copies. Farm them out to other institutions.

3) Here is a radical one! Offer retired white male executives, those 'evil, nasty' men that benefited from apartheid, the chance to come in and use their lifetime of managerial skills, at a cut price for their country. They could manage the organisational side of police stations like a business and free the cops up to hit the bad guys? Any takers?

4) Use our army here and not in the Congo. Form units dedicated to certain types of crime. Units that hunt cash heist robbers, units that hunt hijackers and units that hunt armed robbers. Well-trained, well-equipped, highly mobile response units that respond quickly to certain codes with the intent to catch in the act. We are paying them salaries anyway and they could keep battle-ready in case of Zim’s invasion…;)

5) Alternatively, use said army to slowly take back streets of choice. Perhaps central JHB is a good place to start? Post two armed soldiers in radio contact on every street corner for a week. Any criminal stupid enough to commit a crime will be caught like a spider in a web and he will never be able to outgun the law. Arrest for the smallest crime. Keep this up until area is safe and then expand. Immediately return at first crime in safe area and repeat. Slowly drive criminals away from key areas.

6) Here is another radical one; form think-tanks of criminals in prison and allow them to redeem themselves and earn parole by working out where the next big crimes might go down or how to stop them or who to arrest. They think differently and might have a new angle. Success gets rewarded, they feel useful to society. Repeat offence after the program gets life and you get announced as a program member on your first day back in the slammer.

7) Stop these ridiculous courtroom and jail escapes. We are not fooled. It is either an inside job or the security is pathetic. Fix the one and root out the other. No more!

8) Use technology, cameras especially. We have state of the art video surveillance equipment to catch speeding motorists, why not expand that to a camera network in a city that can track criminals on recorded footage after the act? Follow them to an area, camera by camera, get pictures of their faces and publish them.

And so I could go on. I have listened to my president who voiced his own disgust at the death of Lucky Dube and I am working together with him to solve crime as he asked me to do. I have done my little bit today, I have shown I care. Now it is his turn to show me that he cares and that he has the WILL to fix this mess, regardless of who is responsible for it or how hard it is. Good people are dying, excuses are just not good enough.