POLITICS

Together we can bring about freedom from gangs and drugs - Mmusi Maimane

DA leader says a future DA govt will bring back specialised police units that will flush out gangsters and close drug dens

Together we can bring about freedom from gangs and drugs

26 May 2015

Note to Editors: The following remarks were made by the DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane MP, in Mitchells Plain. Maimane visited the community as part of the Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity Tour.

My fellow South Africans,

Thank you for coming out here to engage with us today.

This is my first visit to Mitchells Plain as the DA leader. And I give you my word – there will be many more.

I’m now on week two of my Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity tour. I am busy working my way across the country to speak to as many communities as possible before we launch our Vision 2029 document on 13 June – our roadmap for a safe and prosperous South Africa.

Three weeks ago, at the DA’s Federal Congress, we adopted and signed a Values Charter – a document that explains what we believe in and what we live by as a party.

At the heart of this Values Charter lie these three words: Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity. These are the DA’s core values. This is what drives us to build a better, more inclusive South Africa for all its people.

And we know that we share these values with the majority of South Africans. We know that if we build our future South Africa around these values, it will be the country we all want to live in.

On this tour, I aim to tell as many people as I can about this future South Africa that we have in mind. Because the more people know about it, the more people will join us in building it.

Together we will be unstoppable.

But this tour isn’t just about me and my DA colleagues talking to you. This tour is a chance to engage in conversations. It is a chance for us to hear from people like you about the challenges you face every day.

We already have a good idea what some of those challenges are. When you read of Mitchells Plain in the news, it is mostly for the wrong reasons.

Too often, the wrong people grab the headlines here. People who think they have the right to control your streets with violence. People who think they can intimidate you. People who want to steal the innocence of your children.

We cannot allow that to happen, and we won’t.

Mitchells Plain belongs to you. In the future South Africa that we have in mind, there is no place for gangsters and drug lords on our streets.

And so, of our three core values, the one I want to speak about today is that of Freedom.

True freedom is not only the right to make a cross on a ballot paper on voting day. If this was what freedom meant, then all South Africans would have been free for over 20 years already.

The truth, unfortunately, is that many South Africans are still not free. Many are trapped in poverty. Many are trapped in unemployment. Many are trapped, like hostages, in their own neighbourhoods – too scared to go out; too scared to speak out.

These people are not free. 

Many of you are parents. I am a father myself. I know what it’s like to raise children in a world where it often feels like we can’t always protect them.

Raising children in the best of circumstances is difficult enough. Raising children in a community where gangsters and drug lords roam free must be just about the hardest thing in the world.

So today I pledge to you that we will end this. Together, we will make these streets safe, and we will once again raise our children the way we were meant to: free from fear.

This is what the DA means by Freedom.

True freedom is earning a living wage. It’s getting a good education. It’s enjoying world-class healthcare and basic services.

And true freedom is also the right to live and move about in your own neighbourhood without fear.

I’m talking about freedom from gangs. I’m talking about freedom from drugs. I’m talking about freedom from the violent lifestyles of those thugs that threaten you and your children.

Over 10 years ago, the ANC national government decided to disband the police’s specialised anti-drug and gang units. This is when they finally admitted to communities like yours that they simply don’t care.

Since then, drug-related crime has shot up by almost 200%. Criminals now see these communities, these neighbourhoods, these streets as their own territories. 

They fight over their turf with their rivals and they don’t mind who gets caught in the crossfire.

If the ANC cared at all, it would have brought back the anti-drugs and gang unit a long, long time ago.

But the ANC has other priorities when it comes to police budgets.

These priorities include a massive R2 billion for VIP protection services. They include sparing no cost when it comes to protecting the president’s private palace in Nkandla.

These are the things that matter to our government, and the safety of your streets, your schools and your children comes a very distant second.

Last week we saw the national government roll out its Operation Fiela to gang hot-spots in Mannenberg and Ottery. While any extra police presence is welcome, this kind of short-term operation has no hope of solving the long-term problem.

What is needed is a permanent police unit to deal with a deep-rooted gang problem. And by this, I mean a unit that is able to investigate and successfully prosecute more than just 2% of gang violence cases, which is the current conviction rate.

As the DA, we can’t change this directly. SAPS is controlled by the national ANC government in all provinces, and the DA controlled Western Cape government can only oversee what they do here.

Through Cape Town’s Metro Police, we can assist where there are spikes in gang crime. And we can continue to fight for the anti-drugs and gang unit in parliament. But in order for us to make a real difference, the DA needs to be in national government.

With a DA government in the Union Buildings, one of the very first thing’s we’ll do is to re-establish the specialised units that will flush out the gangsters, close the drug dens and give you back your streets.

Our first step towards the Union Buildings is next year’s local government election.

Over the past decade we have been widening the gap between the DA and the ANC here in Cape Town. Despite the ANC’s best efforts to divide Cape Town communities like yours, you have made it clear that Mitchells Plain is, and will remain, blue.

Now we need to increase that gap even more next year.

Over in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng, we are knocking on the door of three other metros. If we can spread our message of Freedom, Fairness and Opportunity to enough people, we will bring a DA government to the people of Tshwane, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Once we’ve done this, we will have one foot very firmly in the door of the Union Buildings.

Change is coming to South Africa, and you will feel it right here in Mitchells Plain.

We’re taking back our streets. We’re taking charge of our future.

Please join me. Together we will be unstoppable.

Issued by the DA, May 26 2015