Political Problems in South African Society
Political Problems in South African Society
Police In South Africa In the old South Africa before 1994 the police officers job was to squash subversion and his main obstacle was that most people hated him. Today after the 1994 years election the South African police force main job is to stop the growing crime rate. Which seems impossible for them to manage. The police officers main hurdle is his own lack of modern policing skills. Many policemen are barely literate, and are no good at the administrative tasks on which they spend seventy percent of their time. South Africa's murder rate is eight times that of the United States, and figures released on December 7th, 1999 showed steady increases in the other 18 of the 20 most serious categories of offence (The Economist January 22nd 2000). According to data released by the police, only one in every seven murders reported ends in conviction; and only one in 50 car hijacking result in a conviction (Business Day, 14 January 1999). School children can today in South Africa get hold of guns more easily than pencils. There are nine million legal guns and estimated to be three to four million illegal guns in circulation. Some hospitals now treat more bullet wounds than traffic injuries. Almost 18,000 new gun licenses are granted each month, and many believe that a firearm is their best defense. Guns themselves are often target for robbers; most of the 225 policemen killed in South Africa last year were murdered for their weapons (The Economist February 27th 1999) Corruption - Governance South African government official policy has been to downsize the government and make it more racially representative. The South African government tried to achieve this goal by offering generous severance packages to white public servants and then did not fill their vacancies. By early 1998 24,000 individual packages had been granted to white (After Mandela, The 1999 South African Elections, pg 15). This policy backfired on the South African Government since most of the people taking the packages were more experienced and competent public officials the public service could not afford to lose. Men and women who have been taken literally from the bush and without previous training, and they have been asked to run the governments. There are too many civil servants, and they often do not like each other. Some public servants claim multiple salaries and pensions,...