Crime rate is 'dropping'
2005-02-13 08:26
Pieter Malan and David van Rooyen
Johannesburg - The crime rate is falling, and it is not only the police and the government that say so.
Information from the country's insurance industry indicates that there are now fewer claims for losses due to housebreaking and car theft.
On Friday President Thabo Mbeki told parliament that the crime wave was waning.
To date, 168 of the country's top 200 criminals had been arrested. The murder rate fell by 8%, car theft by 5.4% and robbery by 5.9%.
Mbeki received support from three of the biggest short-term insurers - Mutual and Federal, Outsurance and SA Eagle - when they published their very favourable company results this past week.
The reason? Their favourable results reflect the fact that the number of insurance claims resulting from car theft, hijackings and house-breaking fell markedly during the past year - in some cases by 33%.
The figures - independent of official police and government statistics - show that the tide is turning against criminals.
The CEO of Outsurance, Willem Roos, said claims for losses incurred due to theft had dropped by between 15% and 30%.