Dear Mr Cele,
As an introduction, the final prod that spurred me to write this appeal to you was the unfortunate experience I had upon visiting a police station in Johannesburg.
I was met by shabbily dressed, slouching officials who made it abundantly clear that they did not want to extract themselves from between the widely stretched arms of their chairs before shuffling their way they slowly towards the counter like jelly sliding across the floor, only then to show their complete lack of knowledge to help with what I expected to be the most basic of information.
The young folk at the local MacDonald's make better attempts to look respectable in their sometimes ill-fitting uniforms. They are also more knowledgeable about their job and their company and conduct themselves in a more professional and friendly manner. Good for them, they have honest jobs.
Mr Cele, true to your image you have been doing a lot of tough talk about bringing the criminals to book and creating a society where a rape, murder and violent crime is "shocking news". You have also spoken about getting the police force into better physical shape. All this is good news, but it's what is not being said that makes me worry about you being able to achieve your goals.
Allow me to expand by using your own good analogy about not having to be a pilot to manage an airline. Let's assume you were responsible for an airline that was not enjoying customer support because it had come to the public's knowledge that the flight attendants were rude and dishonest and poorly performing pilots resulted in accidents.
It would not take a business degree to realise that no matter how many new planes you bought, the public would not support the airline until they were confident that you had an accident free record and they could trust the pilots and attendants. You could only achieve this by either upgrading the skills and professionalism of your pilots and crew or replace them with more a professional and skilled team.
You see Mr Cele, it's not the tools of the job that inspire public confidence, it's the manner in the job is executed, with or without tools, that determine the level of support you will get. Herein lie's my concern.
What have you inherited?
You have inherited a generally corrupt and ineffective police force. Stories of police abuse and incompetence emerge daily across all sectors of our society.
While I have no doubt your intentions are good, equipping such a force with more power and new tools will do nothing to instil public confidence in your organisation. As individuals and as business entities we are constantly told that we have a duty to help the police fight crime; how can we do this when we have enough evidence to show the police to be either on the wrong side of the law themselves or too incompetent or lethargic to do anything about it?
While few would disagree with your hard line approach to criminals, we've heard it all before. You will gain far greater support by acknowledging what your predecessors refused to see and that's the internal rot that is paralysing your organisation.
Mr Cele, I appeal to you to display that character not found in your predecessors and purge your organisation those incompetent or criminal individuals instead of ignoring them or taking lame action like putting them on "extended leave" with full pay only to allow them to slip back into the system.
Ridding yourself of these unsavoury individuals will not only encourage those officials who are trying to do a good job, but it may provide good solid respectable careers for many South Africans who would like to be part of an effective and appreciated law enforcement agency.
I am prepared to bet that once you have cut out the rot from within your organisation the remainder of your task, albeit huge, will be a lot easier. You will have more competent individuals in your (new) team and will enjoy far greater support from every sector of our society.
While you have significant challenges in your new role, you also have exceptional opportunities. The public support you will gain from all South Africans if you are brave enough to fight the fight from within will far outweigh any short term gain you may enjoy by maintaining the status quo.
Sir, you are in a position to either to be fobbed off as just another puppet on a string, or you could go down in history as the man who delivered this country back to its citizens.
Heaven knows, we could all do with a unifying hero right now.
Do you have what it takes? I hope so.
Quenton
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