GOOD welcomes the appointment of Professor Firoz Cachalia to this critical portfolio at a time when public trust in the police is dangerously low, and the entire criminal justice system is under unprecedented scrutiny. The appointment follows explosive allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, implicating senior figures in our police service, intelligence structures, prosecuting authority, and political leadership. These allegations must be taken seriously, and due process must follow but they cannot be allowed to consume the entire focus of the new minister.

The Cape Flats was rocked by yet another mass murder on Friday night. Four adults were gunned down inside a home in Bishop Lavis. By Saturday morning, life had moved on. No heightened police presence. No wall-to-wall media coverage. No outrage. In the Cape Flats, violence has become so normalised that mass murder is met with a collective shrug from government and society alike.

The DA has outrageously washed its hands of responsibility for transforming the culture of gangsterism in the Western Cape until it is given control of the police. The party has been running the governments of Cape Town and the Western Cape for nearly two decades, more than long enough to implement its policies and programmes, but it takes no responsibility for gangsterism, which it blames solely on incompetent national policing.