The South African Special Risk Insurance Association (Sasria) said if the government had acted swiftly by sending enough armed forces, the July 2021 unrest wouldn’t have exploded in the manner that they did.
The State insurance company made a mini documentary and invited other institutions who were affected during the chaos that claimed the lives of over 350 people and a loss of over R60 billion to the economic sector.
“We don’t believe that the State security cluster reacted in the manner it should have, we also don’t believe that police acted in the manner they should have.
“The looting and the violence started on the Friday and escalated rapidly over the weekend and the South African Defence Force were called in almost five days later,” said Neil Gopal, chief executive at the South African Property Owners Association.
Gopal said even fire fighters were not on the scene because they were scared as there was no army or police to protect them. Police also did not act as they feared being outnumbered.
Executive Manager at Sasria, Muzi Dladla said when a situation gets out of control, police are called on the scene, however, if their efforts fail, the army should be called.
He said communication between the State and the security cluster should have have been better.
“There was a communication breakdown in handling the riots, the response was delayed.If the response was on time we couldn’t have been talking a different story.
“But what we can take forward is that there must be an integrated approach or manner of communicating with one another so that there’s a way of migrating to one defence to another so that the risk is protected,’’ he said.
So far, Sasria had paid out over R32 billion to compensate affected businesses with some of the funds, R22 billion- injected by the National Treasury.
CEO at Sasria, Mpumi Tyikwe, said it was unfortunate that Treasury had to donate R22 billion to assist with settling claims, as this was money that could have been better used towards other urgent service delivery needs.
“We all know the damage the unrest did to our economy and infrastructure. Much as this is etched in our history, we need to reflect, plan better and vow never to see such a repeat.
“We do recognise the right of people to protest, but we call on them to do so responsibly,” he said.
Moreover, Pick n Pay chair, Gareth Ackerman said the government has to implement policies and act on them to ensure that they protect the economy.
“What was destroyed in July it was jobs for South Africans... We spend too much time on politics within government and within various factions of government instead of focusing on what the government has been elected to do.
“The government has been elected to make sure that the taxes people pay is spent delivering a better life for citizens of South Africa,” said Ackerman.
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