JOHANNESBURG – As President Cyril Ramaphosa prepares to deliver the State of the Nation Address, crime remains one of the most pressing concerns for millions of South Africans.
In last year’s address, Ramaphosa promised stronger policing and better coordination in the criminal justice system, but many residents in high crime areas say this hasn’t made a dent in crime.
Security analyst Andy Mashaile says the crime statistics indicate that most categories of crime have gone up.
While the President detailed a mandate to fight crime in his last address, Mashaile says SAPS leadership was failing to translate the strategies and tactics into an effective and efficient running system.
“It hasn’t translated into what we would have expected from the mandate deployed by the president. There is a cocktail of dynamics that would inform when we are on a trajectory to crime prevention. We are still struggling.”
In his 2025 address, Ramaphosa said the detective service would expand by 4,000 personnel.
He said government was working on obtaining surveillance, analytics and smart policing solutions for modern law enforcement.
Mashaile said while Ramaphosa’s speech was impressive and inspiring, not a single police station had a drone unit.
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“The issues that the president raised do not translate to reality because of strategic incompetence by leadership both at provincial and national levels.”
Meanwhile, Stanley Maphosa of Gun Free South Africa says police were not doing enough to reduce gun violence.
“We still have 33 people being killed daily in South Africa. It is crisis level, and very little movement is being done to address that.”
Maphosa said part of the problem is access to illegal firearms.
“Those that are legal must be controlled so that they do not move into the illegal space. The two sides of the same coin must be balanced. On the legal side, the firearms control registry is the critical instrument, and it is historically dysfunctional.”