'SA ganging up on crime'

2006-09-28 21:06

Johannesburg - Private-sector data on bank robberies and cash heists was being collated and analysed weekly, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told businessmen on Thursday.

This, after it emerged on Wednesday that cash-in-transit heists were the fastest-rising crime in the country.

There was a 74.1% rise in the number of heists during the 2005/'06 financial year, from 220 to 383, the police revealed in their latest annual crime statistics.

Bank robberies went up 1.7% from 58 to 59 incidents.

"We are working with the SA Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric), also with the Reserve Bank (SARB) to deal with some of the problems," Nqakula told a Business Against Crime (BAC) briefing in Johannesburg.

Just a fortnight ago, Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni said cash-heists was one of the issues keeping him awake at night.

Ensuring stolen cash not useable

"We have to ensure that cash is available throughout the country, and so we have to move the cash in bulk from main production points to every part of the country," he said.

"Thanks to the support of the SA Police Service and the (SA National) defence force we are able to distribute the cash, but with all these cash-heists I get extremely worried."

"I have been working with the banking sector to ensure any cash that is stolen is not useable."

Mboweni said that no sooner was a new method of preventing crime devised than "thugs" found a way around it.

Nqakula said on Thursday that all banks in South Africa were involved in a project on bank robberies and cash heists dubbed "Operation Greed".

A provincial commissioner was receiving and assessing their information on bank robberies and cash-heists every week, he said.

There was also a crime registration information management system "that is a co-ordinated instrument for all of us".

Reiterating the police's need for partners in the fight against crime, Nqakula acknowledged BAC interaction nationally and provincially.

He said the police were working on strengthening community policing forums so that they became intermediaries between police and communities they served and were empowered to do so.

"... We believe there is enough goodwill in the country that can be used as a vehicle of going forward," said Nqakula.

The cluster also needed to look at how to empower businesses with regards to crime.

"We are going to meet to see what else we need to do," he said.

Commercial crime cost R48bn

Police crime information head Chris de Kock told the businessmen that robberies at businesses increased 32% from 3 320 to 4 387 in the past financial year.

He was hoping that, with the availability of more human resources at local police station level, there would be more police on the streets.

According to the police latest annual crime statistics, there were 16   169 commercial crimes in the country in 2005/'06 involving an estimated R48bn.

- SAPA