Fight crime, Africa tells SA
Brendan Boyle
3 December 2006
Peer review panel lists threats to stable democracy — and lawlessness is No 1
THE African Union’s elite watchdog body has urged South Africa to make the fight against violent crime its top priority.
In a hard-hitting confidential report that will go to heads of state in January, a panel of African elders warned that crime, poverty, unemployment and the political domination of the ANC threatened the stability of South Africa’s hard-won democracy.
The 300-page African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) report submitted to President Thabo Mbeki’s Cabinet three weeks ago brushed aside the country’s own self-assessment report submitted in June and relied on non-government submissions and its own year-long research to conclude that fighting crime should be the country’s top priority.
“A great deal had been achieved during the past 12 years ... However, much remains to be done as the nation continues to face a number of challenges,” the report said.
The report reinforced US ambassador Eric Bost’s warning in a Sunday Times interview last week that crime could torpedo South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
The panel listed among the 15 key threats to South Africa’s stability:
The high level of violent crime, which is discouraging investment and causing many skilled people to leave the country;
High levels of crime against women and children, including rape and violence at schools;
Unemployment, which fuels crime and alienates young people from their society;
Black economic empowerment, which enriches too few people too much and encourages politicians to go into business;
The critical shortage of skills, which is not being addressed by an expensive education system that is not producing results; and
The immense gap between the rich and the poor and the division of society by race and class.
“Race relations remain brittle and sensitive. Many whites, coloureds and Indians feel alienated and marginalised. Some blacks, on the other hand, feel too little has changed,” said the report, written by a panel of seven eminent persons appointed under African Union rules to lead the peer review.
Government analysts who have seen the report said some of the statistics quoted — such as the claim on page seven that one in two South African women will be raped in her lifetime — were questionable.
However, according to the rules of the APRM, South Africa can comment on the report but cannot edit it. Mbeki now finds himself in a corner. He can either agree with the report and change tack on crime or he could criticise it and undermine the peer review process which is his brainchild.
An APRM secretariat official said panel chairman Professor Adebayo Adedeji, a renowned Nigerian economist, was expected in South Africa this week. He is expected to meet Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser- Moleketi, who headed the domestic research project and the drafting of the self-assessment report.
The report was produced by a team in Fraser-Moleketi’s office and endorsed by a National Governing Council chaired by her and including Cabinet ministers, civil society representatives and business.
A member of the council said Fraser-Moleketi was “spitting mad” about the Adedeji team’s work.
Government spokesmen said the report had not been released and declined to comment immediately.
The APRM was established as a project of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development to improve social, political and economic development across the continent.
So far, 25 countries have signed up to be assessed by their peers. Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya already have been reviewed, but reports have not yet been formally released.
Fraser-Moleketi claimed that up to five million people had been consulted for the South African self- assessment.
Critics, including some members of the council, said the report was hurried, bland and self-congratulatory.
The APRM panel pushed crime to the top of the agenda for action.
“Crime is one of the most difficult of the many challenges facing South Africa in the post-apartheid era. No South African is insulated from its effects. Beyond the pain and loss suffered by crime victims, crime also has direct costs,” the report said in a reference to the effect on health, productivity, investment and economic growth.
The panel cited various sources who said South Africa had either the highest or second- highest rates of murder, rape and assault in the world and added: “It must be noted, however, that the distinctive feature of crime in South Africa is not its volume, but its violence.”
The report lists 18 issues in which South Africa sets a “best practice” standard for Africa.
They range from effective tax collection and the low-cost Mzansi bank account to Mbeki’s grassroots imbizo consultations and the “Taking Parliament to the People” initiative.
It praised macroeconomic management, initiatives to improve the lives of the poorest and the recent turnaround on Aids.
Picking up issues largely ignored in the self-assessment report, the panel warned that floor-crossing and the party list system put a distance between voters and their representatives that could undermine democracy in the long term.
Governing council members said the government was disappointed and concerned about some statistics that were clearly wrong.
“I don’t think the eminent persons’ report came out to be what the government had expected,” said member Zanele Twala of the South African Non-Government Organisations Coalition.
The report will be released within six months of its presentation to heads of state in January.
Sign up with Google
.