Pretoria - Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula is concerned about the increase in murder, bank robberies and aggravated robbery that has plagued South Africa in the past year.
According to a national police report released on Tuesday, murder increased by 2.4%, bank robberies by 118% and aggravated robbery by 4.6% between April 2006 and March 2007.
Robberies at business premises increased by 52.5% and robberies at residential premises increased by 25.4%.
"The fact that instances of serious and violent crime are very high is disconcerting and unacceptable," said Nqakula.
Overall, there was a 3.4% decrease in serious and violent crimes.
Beeld's Christel Raubenheimer and Pieter du Toit report that National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi agreed home robberies were a problem.
"This is where the rapes, child abuse and vehicle hijackings take place. We'll have to do something about it."
Figures 'not a train smash'
More than 55% of armed robberies took place in Gauteng, because the province was virtually completely urbanised, according to police chief statistician Dr Chris de Kock.
"Murders have shown a decline only in Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape. In the past financial year in South Africa, there were 674 more murders.
"Look at the figures: they are not a train smash. There's a small increase, because of the upward pressure of robberies," said De Kock.
"Our analyses show that this crime is not widespread, but is concentrated in just 8% of the country's police wards.
"This means that a small number of police stations report the majority of the incidents," he explained.
"There are more murders because members of the public, as well as criminals, are shot dead during armed robberies."
Effect on the 'psyche' of the nation
Sapa reports that Nqakula expressed particular concern about the increase in aggravated robbery with street crime comprising 72% of the figure.
"Given that those robberies are accompanied by blood-letting where heavy-calibre firearms are used by organised criminal gangs and that innocent bystanders are often caught in the cross-fire, and the fact that these incidents happen in broad daylight, on our roads and streets and around banks and shopping malls, they've had a devastating effect on the psyche of the nation."
The report showed more crimes happened during the holiday months of December and January, with the lowest crime rates recorded during June and July.
'Weekends are the worst'
The hours between 18:00 to 19:00 was when most crimes took place, peaking at 20:00, then tapering off again.
Crime figures during the week appeared to be stable, but then began to spike about 16:00 on a Friday, peaking on Saturday and beginning to stabilise again on Sunday, he said.
Selebi said police would focus their resources on curbing crime in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape, which accounted for 62% of the serious crimes committed in South Africa.
"To get the war won, we must win the war in Gauteng, we must win the war in KwaZulu-Natal and in the Western Cape. These three provinces must have an advantage over other provinces.
"If we reduce crime there, we reduce 62% of overall crime in the country," he said.
Associated Press reports that reaction to the statistics released on Wednesday was swift. Opposition parties said they were shocked by the figures.
Dianne Kohler-Barnard of the Democratic Alliance said: "These crime figures make a mockery of the minister for safety and security's assurances to foreign business that the crime rate is under control."
Trends 'are disturbing'
Independent crime researcher Antony Altbeker said he was disappointed and concerned.
"The turnaround in the murder rate is very troubling. It was falling, but now has gone up. The trends in aggravated robbery are quite disturbing," he said.
"The police have got to take seriously that, in the past 10 years, there has been explosion of crime in the suburbs," said Altbeker, adding that the trends were "bound to create panic in people."
Probably license fraud, cause no one can get on eNatis
but hey, whatever. The first thing that came to mind was security when hauling out a laptop in that environment.
. Only one murder( A elderly person strangled with a telephone cord just up the road from me IIRC) down from 2 the previous year 
