South Africa is More Unsafe than Zimbabwe

South Africa being the third least safest place out of 48 countries on the African continent, indicates that SA is critically unsafe, an opposition political party in that country has claimed.


The party's spokesperson on Safety and Security MP Dianne Kohler Barnard said that the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which ranked SA as third most dangerous after "war zone" countries, Sudan and Burundi indicated that what citizens of that country had been crying out for years, was the truth.


"South Africa's safety and security performance is utterly abysmal. The fact that we are just 30 points above the most dangerous country in Africa, and right now, probably the world, must act as a loud wake-up call to the Minister of Safety and Security."


She added that countries including Congo, Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe Rwanda and Liberia were far safer in terms of safety and security. "Although the government will continue to throw money at the crime problem, such an approach has had only limited success," Barnard said.


She said it was likely that companies and individuals would continue protecting their own security themselves. "This threatens to spawn a vigilante environment ... if a spate of violent robberies and killings of foreigners is repeated during the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the negative consequences for future tourism and foreign investment will be severe."


"ANC spin-doctors are already attempting to denigrate the Index, stating that, there is this hullabaloo over crime, and that South Africa is one of the safest countries in the world - for the ministers and their cronies perhaps, but most certainly not for the rest of us," Barnard said.