Debunking South Africa's crime rate.

With just under a year before the world's most popular sport descends on South Africas shores, figures just released show that the country's crime rate is far from rescinding. South Africa is the world's most crime riddled nation with a woman being raped every 18 seconds, and numerous murders occuring per day. President Zuma earlier this year appointed a tough talking and seemingly no nonsense police chief who promised to wipe crime off the face of South Africa. However, the figures on the ground are speaking a different story.

The South African crime rate is a problem that does not require populist politicking like President Zuma is always doing. It is a manifestation of centuries of segregation, political upheavals and inadequate distribution of wealth. It needs a multi-faceted approach. South Africa must embark on a massive job creation exercise twinned with a massive roll out of adult education. Most of the middle aged South Africans have never seen the insides of a classrooom, especially the ones that did not go into exile during the 80s and early 90s when apartheid was reighning supreme. During my stay in South Africa, I was amazed at how some South Africans view the killing of another being as being the equal to just killing a goat for a meal. I blame ignorance for such a warped view about life. Education helps in cultivating values and subsequently morals in human beings.

The inequal distribution of wealth makes some sections of South African society to believe that it is right to rob from others who have amassed undeserving wealth. South Africa is a developed country in some sections, and poorer than the poorest place on earth in others. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to know that if there is poverty in a sea of plenty then there is trouble.

The political leadership, black and white, ruling and opposition, must come together and address these issues. The police alone will never be able to curb crime, even if you go and train them on the moon...

South Africa is sweet-oh!

It was the only African country at the G20 in London last week. It is Africas biggest economy. If you havent been to Cape Town, then you havent been anywhere! Welcome to South Africa, beautiful, rich, powerful...and disgusting. After 8 years in which the SA media went overboard in exposing Jay Zee`s (Short for Jacob Zuma) seemeingly insatiable appetite for corruption, the man has walked free today. There is nothing surprising here, after youth leader Malema threatened to "kill" for Zuma last year, something had to give. Chief prosecutor Mokotedi Mpshe said phone-tap evidence suggested political interference in the investigation. What else could the man have said, the ANC was blowing so hot Zuma had to be dropped like a hot potato.

The media in SA has already predicted that in about 4 weeks time, Zuma will take the reigns of Africas most powerful nation. Having grown up in a poor rural KwaZulu Natal, it remains to be seen whether the "Shower Boy" will finally transform South Africa into an African country. I actually had a friend who argued that South Africa is not part of Africa, and he was right. You just need to see how the most powerful nation on the continent can afford to have so many poor shack dwellers in such a sea of plenty. Or is it because SA, has not yet been liberated?