During the sixth administration, we established specialised task teams to deal with economic sabotage such as cable theft, the vandalism of power installations and railway lines, illicit mining and extortion in the construction industry.
These crimes are highly organised and run by syndicates. As such, we have taken a multi-pronged strategy to combat them. Over the past five years, 722 so-called construction mafia suspects have been arrested for extortion at construction sites. Fifty-two have so far been convicted and sentenced to terms ranging from 7 months to 89 years imprisonment.
Operations continue into the disruption of illicit mining activities, including working with mining houses and the Department of Mineral Resources to seal abandoned mine shafts. Our approach to crime-fighting has had to evolve in response to new types of crime. These include illicit mining and construction site extortion, and, more recently, kidnappings for ransom and more sophisticated drug manufacturing and smuggling operations.
The successes of Operation Shanela have shown the benefits of multi-sectoral collaboration and the value of specialised task teams. The SAPS and all stakeholders involved in Operation Shanela are to be congratulated for this sterling work.
Crime, even if it has not affected us directly, is everybody’s problem. If we continue to work together as government, the business community, labour and civil society, we can restore the safety and security that is critical to economic activity and the creation of jobs.
If, as communities, we play an active role in supporting the police through the CPFs and other structures, we can indeed take back our homes, our businesses, our communities and our streets from criminals. If we continue the good work started through Operation Shanela, we can beat crime and build a safe and secure country.
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