00:00And allow me to be quite candid, I was pretty annoyed, probably more than annoyed, probably
00:07angry when I saw the murders happening in quick succession in that Agile area.
00:14Because in my mind, the Tumehoso Assembly, we are spending gargantuan sums on security.
00:25Mr Agustin said, THA monies have been shifted from various projects towards Tipeko's fight
00:32against crime, yet he is not seeing tangible results.
00:36Monies we don't have, we're moving from other projects and putting it to the national security
00:42apparatus.
00:43When they come and say we don't have vehicles, we find new vehicles.
00:44If we have to rent it, we find new vehicles and give it to them.
00:45When they come and say, look, we don't have accommodation and we need to accommodate three,
00:46four, five different units of land, we don't have it.
00:47When they come and they say, look, we need to motivate the officers, we provide anything
00:54that is asked for, we find a way to provide it, and I feel like we're not getting the
01:09results we want.
01:12Mr Agustin is asking, what is the point of licensing officers shutting down the streets
01:18of Tipeko routinely when the escalation of crime continues?
01:21I don't know, licensing and myself, we don't have the best of relationships.
01:27But I have to ask whether or not the strategy where we come once in a while and shut down
01:35the island and this mass operation, if that is effective, if that is actually working.
01:41Because it has not proven to stop the tide of criminality that we are experiencing.
01:48Agustin said religious leaders' priority should be more than just the collection of tithes
01:54and offerings from members.
01:56But I wonder sometimes, and I know I will get some political licks with that, but I
02:00say anyway, I wonder sometimes if the efforts from some faith-based organizations aren't
02:08heavy on how much we collect in the seeds we ask people to sow, and not so much on
02:16the social outreach programs.
02:19Agustin made reference to a primary school student he spoke to in Tipeko East who told
02:25him crime does pay and has its rewards.
02:28He said to me something that I never thought I would hear from a primary school child.
02:35He said to me that he has a relative, an uncle to be precise, that is involved with the sevens.
02:44His uncle, he tells me where he lives, he tells me his uncle does robberies and so on,
02:48but his uncles make more than that a month, right?
02:53And it dawned on me that perhaps while we are thinking crime does not pay, for some
03:03in our community, they see it as paying, as bringing dividends that support their families
03:10in one way or the other.
03:12He said communities must do more.
03:15I am saying we have to go back to a place where families take responsibility, because
03:22how can we have in a home a young man being told and taught that, look, I am profiting
03:31from my crime proceeds, this is what the profits look like, it's a good thing, and that's happening
03:37normally in a family.
03:39What happened to the days when if you carried home a pencil that did not belong to you,
03:43you got licks to take it back because it's not yours, or if you took home a copybook
03:48that was not yours, you had to account for why it was in your bag.
03:52Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.
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