Poll finds Mbeki clueless about crime
Sapa
January 20 2007 at 11:15AM

South Africans are more critical of the government's handling of crime now than they were a year ago, a Markinor survey revealed on Friday.

"In fact, crime and unemployment are the two critical issues in which government has consistently achieved less than a pass mark over the years," Markinor Director and political analyst Mari Harris said in a statement.

On Monday, Mbeki told television interviewer Tim Modise that it was just a perception that crime was out of control.

"It's not as if someone will walk here to the (television) studio in Auckland Park and get shot.

"That doesn't happen and it won't happen.

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"Nobody can prove that the majority of the country's 40 million to 50 million citizens think that crime is spinning out of control."

But only four out of every ten adult South Africans think the government does enough to reduce crime, according to a Markinor bi-annual government performance barometer conducted among 3 500 people in November.

However, they do have a "relatively high level" of trust in the Scorpions and mostly agree with the way in which the elite team handles high-profile corruption investigations.

Although Mbeki did acknowledge the negative impact of crime on the public, he had raised ire in suggesting that crime was not out of hand, Harris said.

Former Springbok rugby wing Gerrie Germishuys, who was recently attacked at his home in Northcliff, Johannesburg, said: "If the government's armed bodyguards were taken away from them, they would realise how unsafe the country has become."

o This article was originally published on page 3 of Pretoria News on January 20, 2007