South Africa debates crime rates

By Peter Biles
BBC News, South Africa

Opposition parties want President Mbeki to do more to fight crime

The fight against crime, which is one of the biggest challenges in South Africa, appears to have caused a serious rift within the country's business community.

One of South Africa's leading banks, FNB (First National Bank), had been planning a 20m rand ($2.7m) poster and advertising campaign in an effort to influence the government.

This would have involved a call on the public to petition President Thabo Mbeki, in order for him to make crime his Number One priority.

Mr Mbeki is to deliver his annual State of the Nation address in parliament in Cape Town on Friday.

However, shortly before the publication of weekend newspapers, FNB decided not to go ahead with the plan. This has prompted suggestions that the bank was persuaded to drop the anti-crime initiative.

Government pressure

Paul Harris, the Chief Executive of FirstRand, which owns FNB, says that after consulting widely, the bank took advice, and decided to withdraw the campaign.

He has declined to say whether the bank had come under pressure from government or other sectors of big business which have distanced themselves from FNB's anti-crime moves.

The bank holds a number of important government and local government accounts.

CRIME FIGURES 2005 Murders: 18,545 Rapes: 54,926 Kidnappings: 2,320 Source: SA Police Service Send us your experiences

Documents obtained by the national daily newspaper, Business Day, suggest that a number of the country's top business leaders had been opposed to the advertising campaign.

The paper quotes a draft statement by Business Leadership South Africa, a forum for big business, saying that "the core group of leadership deeply questioned the wisdom of the FNB initiative".

Business Leadership SA also spoke of preserving "the relationship of trust built with government".

Intense debate

But according to Business Day, one prominent CEO, Johann Rupert, then wrote a letter to Business Leadership SA, expressing his support for the FNB anti-crime plan.

Gun crimes like carjackings are common in South Africa

"To speak up about things that are patently wrong in a society, is not disloyal - it is the moral right and duty of any citizen. It can be called "loyal dissent".

"The aim of the FNB campaign is not to criticise government, but to give the citizens of our country a voice", he reportedly said. In recent weeks, there has been intense debate in South Africa about the high levels of violent crime.

The killing of the world-renowned historian, David Rattray, has drawn international attention to the problem.

Mr Rattray was shot dead by a gang of intruders at his Fugitives' Drift Lodge in KwaZulu-Natal late last month

A member of the gang has just been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Crisis

Opposition parties have been calling on President Thabo Mbeki to do more to fight crime.

The Democratic Alliance's spokesperson on safety and security, Dianne Kohler-Barnard, says the country's leaders must wake up to the reality that crime is a crisis pervading every sector of society, and is now threatening to derail the economy.

"It is time for the government to pull its head out of the sand," she said last week.

The Independent Democrats, led by Patricia De Lille, believe the only way forward is for the government to convene an all-inclusive crime summit.

Last month, President Mbeki highlighted the fight against crime.

"During the course of 2007, we need to make every possible effort decisively to tackle this challenge. In a united front against crime", he said when he presented the ANC's annual programme of action at a rally in Witbank.

However, a few days later in an interview broadcast on SABC TV, Mr Mbeki caused uproar by stating that crime in South Africa was "not out of control".