A bunch of gun-toting males held the mission supervisor and workers of a serious JSE-listed construction firm hostage for nearly all the day final week at a KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) construction site.
Master Builders South Africa (MBSA) government director Roy Mnisi confirmed this on Monday, however declined to call the corporate or mission concerned.
Hostage scenario in KZN
Mnisi mentioned it took a lot of stakeholders, together with the shopper, the police, the KZN provincial security division and the contractors to diffuse the scenario – however not earlier than the individuals working on the site “had been traumatised by guns, intimidation and the hostage situation that took almost the whole day”.
“These guys came with big guns and actually assaulted one of the employees who were on site,” mentioned Mnisi.
“As I understand it, the situation was diffused and the people were rescued without any arrests or anybody having sustained any serious bodily injuries.”
Incidents on the decline?
Mnisi careworn that there has not been a decline within the first half of this yr within the variety of site disruptions or invasions by the so-called construction mafia or enterprise boards, with the larger tasks undertaken by MBSA members extra more likely to be focused than smaller tasks.
Attempts to acquire remark from SA Forum of Civil Engineering Contractors (Safcec) CEO Webster Mfebe have been unsuccessful.
However, Aubrey Tshalata, president of the National African Federation for the Building Industry, mentioned its members have reported that the variety of incidents has subsided.
Tshalata believes the police and different companies have taken a extra energetic curiosity within the actions of the enterprise boards within the construction sector since President’s Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of Nation Address (Sona) in February this yr.
Ramaphosa admitted that South Africa must confront the legal gangs that invade construction websites and different enterprise locations to extort cash from firms.
He mentioned this requires a targeted and coordinated response, and authorities had due to this fact established specialised multi-disciplinary models to deal with financial sabotage, extortion at construction websites and vandalism of infrastructure.
Additional policing
Ramaphosa mentioned the federal government will make sources obtainable to recruit and prepare an extra 12 000 new police personnel to make sure the South African Police Service (SAPS) urgently will get the capability it wants.
Mnisi mentioned these models might have been created someplace however this has not been communicated to the trade.
John Matthews, chair of Construction Alliance South Africa (Casa), an umbrella physique of 37 South African construction sector associations that was established final yr, mentioned Casa had heard nothing additional about these specialised policing models since Ramaphosa’s Sona.
Matthews mentioned some Casa members claimed the variety of incidents had declined in a single province however that exercise had elevated in one other province.
Mnisi mentioned the actions of enterprise boards stays an issue and concern for the construction sector, with incidents at main tasks additionally reported within the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and Mpumalanga.
He mentioned there may be little or no to cease the group that invaded the KwaZulu-Natal construction site final week from returning.
He mentioned these teams are incentivised to return as a result of “they know they will get something out of it and there is nothing for them to lose” and that among the individuals on construction websites keep away from these sorts of challenges by merely paying what’s demanded.
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Preventing hostage conditions
“There is nothing that actually makes these people desist from these activities. If they get arrested and are punished in terms of the law, it will deter those who want to do similar kinds of things,” mentioned Mnisi.
“These companies are corporate citizens of this country. They are paying tax and deserve to be protected by government but unfortunately that hasn’t been successful.”
Mnisi mentioned Casa had a latest dialogue a couple of proposal to raise this situation to the presidency to make sure one thing is completed about this downside “failing which class actions against the government” could also be thought of.
He mentioned Casa has not but taken any resolution on this proposal however believes it might be “one of the ways in which the industry will be able to express its frustration” about a majority of these incidents.
“The trade can not afford to have a majority of these incidents. We don’t have work and there are only a few infrastructure tasks.
“With the very little that we have, we have these incidents that are continuing to happen unabated. It can’t go on like this,” he mentioned.
Global report on SA’s ‘construction mafia’ downside
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime final month launched a report, ‘Extortion or Transformation: The construction mafia in South Africa’.
The report mentioned the actions of the construction mafia have been fuelled in South Africa by the weak response from the state, which has allowed them to broaden their actions.
It mentioned that since 2019 at the very least 183 infrastructure and construction tasks price extra that R63 billion had been affected by these disruptions throughout the nation.
“Although nationwide and provincial stage authorities has condemned the actions of enterprise boards, this has not translated into vital motion in opposition to boards who’ve invaded construction websites and used violence or the specter of violence to realize their calls for.
“This has created a climate of impunity that has allowed the construction mafia to flourish,” it mentioned.
Recommendations it made to the federal government, companies and communities included:
- For the federal government to develop a extra complete technique to take care of the issue of systemic corruption;
- Creation of an setting that can encourage victims of extortion to really feel protected sufficient to report it;
- Development of robust partnerships between authorities, enterprise and communities;
- Partnerships and methods to deal with the problem of normalisation of extortion throughout the construction sector;
- For the federal government to deal with the problem of members of the construction mafia accessing and utilizing unlawful firearms;
- Development of early-warning techniques to detect and forestall extortion because it arises; and
- Development of a complete and equitable strategy to infrastructure improvement whereas coping with extortion within the construction sector.
This article first appeared on Moneyweb and was republished with permission. Read the unique article here.
