Letter: Covid not the reason for SAPS budget cut - The Star

The IOL report, "Police budget cut by R1bn due to Covid", refers. In fact, the police budget was not cut due to Covid-19.

It was cut because more than a decade of economic mismanagement, state capture, and anti-investment policy brought the economy to its knees before Covid-19 struck.

Even now policies such as expropriation without compensation and various race-based empowerment edicts continue to undermine the investment attractiveness of South Africa.

For this, all South Africans pay a price and there could not be a better example of that than the police budget being cut in a country that continues to demonstrate a murder rate that is a multiple of global norms.

Frans Cronje, CEO, Institute of Race Relations