What do South Africans want? And What do South Africans deserve? Two of the most vexing questions of the past two decades. There does, however, seem to be consensus that what we want and deserve are lasting peace and order. Freedom we can use. From peace and order emanate all else – the right to safety, to live, to walk the streets, to work – in a society that encourages individual rights and freedoms in a democracy that thrives.

This is the vision of the DA for South Africa.

To this end the police are the most visible manifestation of government authority – and are the ones tasked with bringing about that peace and order.

As a post-conflict society, this great nation of ours must exert a laser-like focus on the rule of law – and to that end we need a standardised foundation to inform all police-related activities with accepted norms and standards drummed into every officer from Constable to National Police Commissioner.

We need and deserve for our R73-billion contribution to the budget, police who follow international best policing practices as naturally as they breathe and who are equipped mentally, and physically and furnished with every item necessary to counter any and every new security threat. We need police who serve us, police who are committed to the rule of law, committed to policing ethics, and accountable to the law and to us, the people they serve. We need police our citizens turn to, rather than police citizens run from.

Sadly, we have confused police whose bosses are hired by a compromised President to protect him at all costs. They in turn hire people with non-policing backgrounds who they give high ranks and fat salaries in exchange for protection from the media, politicians and accountability.

Beneath them is a rather threadbare thin blue line of real police who strive to keep us safe and who believe in this ideal of preventing and detecting crime. But they are surrounded by police who are feared, and who are frequently involved in criminal activities such as poaching one of the 1215 rhino slaughtered this year while taking a salary to protect them or accepting bribes on the border to allow contraband in or out.

Progress is made towards democratic policing when there is a shift from a control-oriented to a more service-oriented approach. In our case we started our democracy by turning it into a Service away from the dreaded Apartheid-era Force – but then Hon Bheki Cele saw fit to turn it into his personal army so that he could be a General wearing medals as fake as those on the chest of his successor.

While his failed National Police Days are still under investigation by the crumbling SIU, so has the current national Commissioner failed spectacularly in ridding us of even one of the infamous 1448 convicted murderers, rapists, bigamists, fraudsters and the like, who are all still working in the SAPS; 64 of them work in her head office.

That is what we have as a South African Police Service today.

Arriving back at Acacia Park – the Parliamentary Village – last night, three men armed with knives were ripping my neighbour’s burglar bars off – easy to do out of a prefab – until he put on lights and shouted at them. He did call the police but the vehicles have been withdrawn so when, as happened a few days ago, a female MP walks in to men with knives at her throat; another had all her appliances stolen – there is no help.

The police tested my alarm but it wasn’t linked to anything because you cancelled the private security company and didn’t tell anyone. Then the water was cut off – so Acacia Park is a microcosm of SA – a cesspit of crime locked inside tall walls where we simply have to fend for ourselves.

Extreme politicisation of the police has fuelled cronyism and corruption and, inevitably, also eroded expertise, technical knowledge, and accountability which has dropped to an all-time low.

There is no single vision; the massively expensive review of the Criminal Justices System has fallen as flat as the tyres on the thousands of SAPS vehicles languishing in garages as the NPC decided to take a tender into her own hands and the court disagreed.

The SITA and Public Works fail time after time to complete even the simplest of tasks, so where we should have a smooth flow and easy access to chart an arrest, trial and incarceration, instead the technical integration of the CJS has failed; the e-docket system has collapsed; the backlogs at the forensic labs are increasing as, for example, Public Works dithers for two years to build the new lab in Pinetown, barely managing to complete the environmental impact study let alone lay a brick.

The current structure sets itself up to fail. Station Commanders want to be seen as successful in terms of having brought crime down so I’m receiving endless reports that victims of crime are simply turned away and told that no case will be opened.

The SAPS thinks it’s fine to create their own crime statistics – which is the equivalent of a matriculant marking his own paper – so the only true statistic we can rely on is murder, and perhaps attempted murder, both of which have risen over the past two years. Before this day is over 47 of us will be dead.

The world watched as our police bungled high profile cases which their best and brightest manage to mangle then lose in court – which makes me wonder why we passed the DNA legislation which will add another level of complexity to their jobs. Equally the world knows the President is now keeping the report on the Marikana Massacre as tightly under his carpet as the Speaker is keeping under hers the Minister of Police’s report on how much he must pay back for his Nkandla palace we paid for.

We all know teams of professionals are massaging those two reports till they are barely recognisable, but everyone knows the day the Marikana Commission report is released, so, too, will be the National Police Commissioner.

She has apparently already been offered various other cushy jobs to just slink off rather like the head of the Hawks did after he had the temerity to ask for the Nkandla files and was suspended for his troubles, but she is defiant to the end and says Mr President, you’ll have to fire me! Mr President, please oblige her, the sooner the better.

We need a professional, real police officer at the helm. Someone who has worked their way up the ranks from Constable – not a failed teacher, recycled politician or twice dumped social worker – an officer admired by our police, in a position all of them can aspire to achieve as they work their way through the ranks, earning their promotions rather than the current system of cronyism and nepotism with 21 year olds bounced through the ranks because they are related to or sleeping with a bigwig in the province.

To say that morale amongst the rank and file is at rock bottom is an understatement to say the least.

I’ve been told the 3-year crisis in Crime Intelligence is coming to an end. However, the latest acting head did rather bravely and probably in a career-limiting move admit to the committee that she warned of the catastrophic xenophobic riots in KZN, but that the police in that province just didn’t react with the speed or numbers her warnings warranted.

Of course they didn’t – as the Provincial PC has other things on her mind. The IPID is busy investigating her for accepting payment for a plush 5-star 50th birthday party for her husband from none other than Thoshan Panday, business partner to the President’s son and also the man who Advocate Gerrie Nel will be grilling in court about the R60m scam during the FIFA World Cup.

Speaking of which, I should remind the House that of course the current National Police Commissioner, is facing an internal disciplinary hearing for defeating the ends of justice by tipping off another of her dodgy Provincial Police heads, this time from the Western Cape, that he was under investigation. He is now in the dock but who in the SAPS will be brave enough to constitute a disciplinary hearing to judge her actions?

The National Development Plan sees our SAPS as I want to see them: professional to the roots of their hair; equipped so they may out-shoot, out-drive and out-maneuver members of criminal syndicates; and as honest as the day is long.

Instead we have members who are professionally bald; can’t shoot; or have no driver’s licences so it doesn’t matter to them that there are no vehicles to drive.

The current Minister was appointed for one reason and one reason only: to protect the President.

There is clear evidence that most of the executive are hard-wired to the Presidential wrecking ball – and in the Ministry of Police anyone who even thinks of mentioning Nkandla is immediately smashed into the future.

I have written to the President requesting that he immediately institute a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the complete mess that has gripped the Police Ministry for months.

Will the President grant my request into a fellow KZN colleague he headhunted and put in to replace our new Head of Ballet: I doubt it. We’ve seen one of his NPCs jailed; the next faces criminal charges, but absolutely nothing has happened with that case and he’s now a deputy Minister to forestry or fisheries or something along those lines.

For our SAPS members to survive the rising tide of organised crime they must be superbly professional, technically proficient and of the highest integrity. We civilians are not the enemy. The police must treat us with respect and politeness, and we will do the same. They must take our requests seriously, and we will return the favour.

The Marikana Report will prove a watershed moment as it will reveal exactly what our South African Police Service has become. Release it Mr President, release it today.