Mandilakhe Tshwete
The City announced that it would embark on an anti-extortion campaign next week.
This was discussed on the last day of the Urban Mobility Summit yesterday.
The directorate said it lost millions because of extortion threats on its sites.
Infrastructure Implementation project manager Johan Fowler said in the previous financial year Urban Mobility lost R60 million.
“We were not able to spend the budget because contracts came to a stand-still because of the extortion threats, these are largely due to contracts coming to a standstill, where the contractor physically abandoned the site, the situation became untenable for them to continue.
“The City had to pick up the tab, paying for the costs for the termination of that contract.”
He explained that they were trying to find ways to mitigate the problem.
“What we are doing in response to that is to build these collaborating agreements, and forums with our safety and security colleagues, we are changing the narrative, to involve local communities to be our eyes and ears, they are the first to know what is going on in their areas, so we can be proactive instead of reactive.”
Fowler added that they were forced to hire private security on their sites.
“We have also employed private security which are not geared for extortion, they are not criminal experts, they don’t know how to react to extortion threats. We have the responsibility to protect them, and their staff and communities,” he explained.
“It’s difficult to say how much we are spending on private security, it depends on the contract.
“There was a small contract of R30 million where there was a threat and it cost the City R50 000 a day to pay the security company.”
Fowler said the anti-extortion with the slogan “Enough is enough” will take place in Khayelitsha in a week’s time.
Public Safety and Operational Co-ordination commissioner Petrus Robberts said they have been trying to work with the police but nothing positive has come out.
“Organised crime is a problem currently, and the mandate for organised crime or any crime is with the SAPS.
“I manage the safety and security and enforcement agencies within the City.
“The five police areas where we manage to fill that gap that is being caused by resource problems within the SAPS.
“We end up taking traffic officers, law enforcement officers from their normal duties and redeploy them to sites to take the contractors and to ensure their safety and security as well as to escort the essential service and the staff to do their daily work and it takes them away from their mandate.”
He said the murder of Wendy Kloppers painted a grim picture of the construction Mafia.
“We started feeling (extortion) when a person was murdered on the Delft site, so the picture unfolded about what is happening within the metropole regarding extortion and the various facets of extortion.
“At first its extortion within the businesses, informal businesses, then it went on to the transport sector and then construction sites, it had a ripple effect to the bid committees and tenders.
“We approached Minister Bheki Cele about three years ago and he promised there would be a provincial task team that would exist out of the Safety and Security, NPA, and the police and we struggled to get the task team off the ground. We even had a presentation at the provincial commissioner’s office. We have an archive full of intelligence that we would like to share with the police and investigating officers.
“The other thing is the threat against individuals because they have families and jobs. We have started to feel extortion in our bodies,” Robberts concluded.
Urban Mobility Mayco member Rob Quintas said the situation has led them to include the possibility extortion threats in the planning of the future of transport in Cape Town.
“We have been learning our lessons in the past few years, it became apparent when we had R90 million expenditure that couldn’t take place in the financial year.
“The targets is about ensuring that service delivery is reaching its milestones. We are focusing on how to draw up contracts ad tenders so that we are sure that our contractors have security on site to deal with these pressure.”
Cape Argus