The business sector is a vital partner in the fight against crime

The business sector is a vital partner in the fight against crime – and our efforts are beginning to bear fruit.

This is the encouraging news from Chamber public service partners at a recent workshop to address the scourge of extortion and kidnappings impacting businesses on the Cape Flats.

In the last quarter of the year 28 people have been arrested related to 13 kidnapping and extortion cases, according to figures presented at the workshop. The success follows establishment of a multi-disciplinary task-team of which the business sector is a key stakeholder.

“Business is a huge stakeholder,” confirmed Reagen Allen, chairperson of the Western Cape parliament’s standing committee on Community Safety, Cultural Affairs and Sport. “When we consider kidnappings for ransom and extortion it impacts businesses because those targeted include wealthy business people,” Allen said, adding that arrested suspects included four SAPS members who had since been dismissed.

Allen was one of several workshop speakers who highlighted the vital role of business in creating jobs needed to alleviate the scourge of crime – by reducing poverty. Said Allen: “The best way and a key way to ultimately ensure that crime is reduced is to ensure our people are employed. A job in every household…means so much to so many of our young people. We have seen gangsterism evolve over decades because of unemployment, and the Chamber plays a vital role to ensure that those (job) opportunities are unlocked.”

JP Smith, the City’s head of Safety and Security, echoed Allen’s sentiments in highlighting job creation as central to the fight against crime. “Jobs are created by capable entrepreneurs where the state tries to remove obstacles to them, and extortion is a major obstacle,” Smith said. He also encouraged businesspeople to open cases when threatened by extortion in order to assist in apprehending suspects. “A company is often unwilling to lay charges and that makes our lives very difficult in terms of getting results,” Smith said.

The Chamber might also wish to consider private prosecutions in cases where SAPS fails to investigate, or to lend support to state investigative efforts, Smith said.

SAPS Cape Town district Commissioner Maj-General Vincent Beaton also highlighted the need for ‘partnership policing’ involving the business sector: “I think the business community has the know-how and also the necessary capabilities to assist SAPS going forward,” Beaton said.

John Lawson
CEO of the Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry