Madam Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition expressed surprise on the reaction from the benches when she mentioned Ntate Seremane and how important he is. [Interjections.] It's not disgust, in fact, you surprised all of us. If he was so important, why didn't you give him the position of a leader at the time? [Applause.] You missed an opportunity.

We thank the President on presenting a well-balanced evaluation of the state of our nation and for pointing the way forward in the long journey towards the realisation of the goal of a better life for all. Building on the achievements we have already scored, the ANC remains firmly committed to work together with the people of our land to improve the quality of life of all South Africans, cognisant of the stubborn legacy of colonialism and apartheid and fully appreciative of the scientific reality that the road to social progress is always under construction. However, we are convinced that we will realise the kind of society enshrined in our Constitution and in the Freedom Charter.

The improved quality of life we talk about must also find expression in the improved conditions of safety and security of the people in their homes and in their communities. They must be safe in their places of work, cinemas, stadia, parks and other places of extramural activities.

This past festive season saw a concerted multidisciplinary approach to the fight against crime. During that short period we achieved good results on the part of crime prevention and combating. This demonstrates that working together we can indeed do more. We should acknowledge though that the reasons and extent of these successes still require further analysis.

Our peace and stability machinery has ensured the success of many significant events. By now we have held numerous elections. Our country has hosted many important international events. Our courts have been and still remain an important platform in the process of defining the content of our rights and obligations in a constitutional state.

For a young democracy like ours, these and many others are no minor successes. In the light of this we can only assume that those who claim that we make undertakings but never deliver are people who spend their time in Slumberland.

The important contribution of our armed forces in the provision and preservation of special and priority skills can never be overemphasised.

Our ground army forces, our air force and the navy have won the confidence of the people through their capacity to protect the sovereignty of the Republic. These successes demonstrate the time-tested truth that together we can do more.

These successes we have scored do not in any way de-emphasise the fundamental necessity to transform the entire judicial system. We have visible evidence of progress made. However, that progress has itself brought about new challenges. All South Africans share the President's deep concern about crime. The ANC and the government of our country are committed to the establishment of a new modernised and efficient and transformed criminal justice system.

This initiative will reduce drastically the levels of crime and ensure the stamping out of corruption. The review entails the scrutiny of our performance along the whole value chain, including the functioning of the police, the judiciary, correctional services; with the aim of achieving enhance levels of integration and co-ordination.

We are paying focused attention to the fight against serious and violent crime. We are also acting with added vigour against organised syndicates. Recent events around Durban in particular attest to our commitment in this regard. We will increase the capacity of the South African Police Service through recruitment, rigorous training and work for better remuneration.

Steps are being taken to better equip and increase the capacity of detective services, forensics, prosecution and judicial services. In this regard, training is earmarked to commence in earnest this year. The people of our land can be assured that we are going to act with speed in the process of establishing the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation, otherwise known as DPCI.

The architecture of this unit is such that it takes on board the positive aspects of previous units while shedding off their weaknesses. In essence we are applying the law of negation of negation in our approach to building the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation by taking the best and shedding off the worst.

There are many who skirt around the truth on this matter. We should reiterate some of what we have said before, that is, the Directorate of Special Operations was a new and innovative development initiated by the ANC government to strengthen the fight against organised crime. It included prosecutors, detectives and intelligence operatives in one unit. This was indeed a powerful combination which nevertheless created its own problems. All policy units are monitored by the Independent Complaints Directorate, however, the DSO was under the National Prosecuting Authority and could not be investigated by Independence Complaints Directorate.

Even as we speak we are faced with the issue of approximately R100 million rand of funds which are unaccounted for by the DSO. The intelligence gathering capacity of our agencies is monitored by the Inspector-General of Intelligence, however, the DSO was not covered by this framework.

Within the context of the review these and many other issues had arisen in practice and had to be given serious consideration in the process of evolving our crime-fighting polices, strategies, entities arsenal and programmes.

Strangely enough none among our critics seem to appreciate the gravity of these and other challenges. They appear even less interested in finding solutions to the problems. This leads one to suspect that the clamour about the DSO is less about quality of its work but more about usability of such work in the furtherance of political aspirations of those who directly or indirectly benefited from the racist dispensation of the past.

To these doubting Thomases the Chinese proverb applies, which states, "The one who says it cannot be done like yourself should not interrupt the one doing it." [Applause.]

We are going to pay added attention to attacks on members of the South African Police Services. As part of this work legislative measures will be introduced to protect law enforcement agencies. We shall ensure that unarmed and defenceless people are protected against any possible abuse. However, for the scoundrels who are nothing but beasts with human faces, the izinswelaboya we will have no mercy.

The scourge of violence against women and vulnerable members of our society remains a blemish on our democratic order. Aspects of our legislative regime, that unintentionally protect perpetrators will be changed this year in order to drive the point home that 16 days of activism is in fact 365 days.

This makes it unlikely that our programmes and operations, including intelligence, would have been targeted to families, relatives, and friends. Thus there is a need for our communities to participate in preventing and combating crime. We shall therefore work consistently to build an enduring people's contract which will find expression in our unity of purpose and action with each sector contributing to the common objective of eliminating crime in our country.

Since 1994 the transformation of the judiciary has undergone marked improvement. As hon members will know the first democratic government inherited a judiciary that was dominated by white males whose prior contribution to the system had been to enforce and implement apartheid rules.

Through the efforts of the ANC-led government programmes were put in place to commence a transformation agenda within the judiciary. This was done through the Magistrates Commission, an independent body responsible for processing the appointment and discipline of magistrates.

Recently we have heard a cacophony of voices purporting to protect the judiciary from the so-called attacks on the important institution of our democracy. From where we stand, this modern day defenders of our democracy have offered nothing new, better nor wiser than the late Chief Justice Ishmael Mohammed when he said: "A viable and credible constitutional culture evolves most effectively within the crucible of vigorous intellectual combat and even moral examination."

Nevertheless, those who seek to shut down this debate consistently ignore this wise counsel by the late Chief Justice. In this instance we shall resort to Aristotle who, when faced with similar circumstances said:

Such people had better take to heart what Hesiod said -

The man is best who sees the truth himself, good too is he who hearkens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom, is not worth a straw.

A line in Tanya Jovanovski's booklet says: "Introduce any negative person who crosses your path to someone else."

Surely our political detractors deserve to be introduced to bats.

Together we will face crime squarely in the eyes and destroy it. We will rid our society of rapists. There shall be no place to hide for those who abuse women and children.

The introduction to Parliament of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act necessitating among others the examination of issues relating to forensics and DNA databases is a positive step forward in the context of revamping the criminal justice system.

Fellow citizens: Rest assured we shall not only be knocking on the doors of the bad. We shall also knock on the doors of the good to urge each and everyone of us to be part of the great wave against crime. Because they love peace, security and comfort we are certain that the greater majority of people of our land, continent and the world will heed our clarion call to join hands and make life difficult for criminals inside and outside of our borders.

Regional integration and co-operation is a guarantee that in their pursuit for a just world order revolutionaries cannot be confined by national borders. Jean Toomer said, "We learn the ropes in life by untying the knots." Together we disentangled the riddle of apartheid, together we can and will defeat crime. As the Chinese proverb say, "Let the one who says it cannot be done not interrupt the one doing it. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

This is the unrevised transcript by Hansard of the address by Nathi Mthethwa, Minister of Safety and Security, in the debate on the president's state of the nation address, Parliament, February 9 2009

Click here to subscribe to our free daily headline email service