by Christopher Thornhill
Cape Town is undoubtedly one of the most recognised and celebrated cities in the world due to its incredible offering to investors, business owners, tourists, workers and residents.
The Cape Town Central Business District (CBD) is a key contributor to the City’s overall positive reputation with it being the financial centre of the Western Cape.
Measuring just over 1.62km², the CBD hosts thousands of businesses, retail and entertainment establishments and residential units with an overall property value amounting to just more than R43 billion in total. This tiny area also accounts for 25% of Cape Town metro’s GDP.
It is clear that the success of Cape Town, as a city, and the Western Cape overall, is directly linked to the success of the CBD. It is therefore crucial that it remains a viable commercial and residential investment node, particularly as we focus on recovering from Covid-19.
The pandemic had a devastating effect on business districts in the country, which bore the brunt of the prolonged lockdown and are still struggling to financially survive as a result of hybrid working models adopted by many companies.
Critical to ensuring that the CBD remains an attractive destination to conduct business, live and invest in is to ensure that it is clean and safe. This was not the case at the start of the millennium when high levels of crime in the city centre were chasing away businesses and investors.
It was clear that the SAPS and the City of Cape Town’s law enforcement agencies could not tackle this problem by themselves, which is why business owners in the area funded the establishment of the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) in 2000 to provide additional security and cleaning services in the CBD.
Over the past 22 years this private-public partnership has made a major contribution to fighting crime and grime in the area and ensuring the CBD remained an attractive place to work, live and play.
It was therefore with great excitement and a sense of civic purpose that the Phangela Group took over the CCID contract at the beginning of March this year, when it bought all contracts managed by Iliso Protection Services, who had provided security services in the city centre since 2007.
Established in 2000, the Phangela Group provides private security services, including guarding, asset protection and armed response, to a number of large companies in Cape Town. One of our main focus areas is using state-of-the art technology and systems to continuously measure the productivity levels and performance of our security guards and to ensure that we are providing the best service to our clients.
When taking over the CCID contract, our company was faced with the challenge of a significant spike in crime in the CBD precinct, with the Cape Town Central police station recording an uptick of 49.8% in serious crimes between April and June 2022 alone. This was in part due to the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions which saw a resurgence of crime in the CBD area, a challenge which Phangela was ready to tackle.
The rise in petty and violent crime had left residents and business owners feeling vulnerable and we at the Phangela Group committed ourselves, working with the CCID, to turning the situation around.
As part of our turn-around strategy, we have invested just over R17.3million
to improve security in the area. The funding has included upgrading infrastructure and installing new technology in the CCID control centre, installing systems, including biometrics, for the better tracking of officers; the purchasing of new patrol vehicles; the introduction of new key performance indicator (KPI) measurement systems; and the deployment of more officers on the ground.
Importantly, we have also focused on professionalising the security service provided to the CCID, including taking steps to ensure all officers are registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority as required by law; improved monitoring of officers; and any officers found to have criminal records or implicated in any criminal activities have been dismissed.
As a result, a number of guards engaged in likely strike action in April. In response, the Phangela Group placed 194 employees in disciplinary hearings for their involvement in the unlawful industrial action, taking part in criminal activities, as well as a subset who had criminal records yet were employed as security guards.
This investment and the action steps we have taken have already resulted in an upturn in the CBD in the past few months.
Most importantly, it has led to a noticeable decrease in crime in the city centre over the past two months.
This is reflected in a reduction of crimes reported to the Cape Town central SAPS and also positive feedback from law enforcement agencies and business owners.
Phangela Group officers have also caught criminals and stopped crimes while these were happening in the CBD.
For example, just recently, one of our officers on patrol in the early hours blocked a vehicle at a local petrol station in the area. The car had just been hijacked and the perpetrator was still in the vehicle.
The officer contacted SAPS and City Law Enforcement who arrived on scene a few minutes later. The hijacker was arrested and the stolen vehicle taken to the Cape Town Central SAPS.
* Christopher Thornhill is chief executive officer of the Phangela Group.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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