South Africa Car Hire

THE collaboration between business and government to tackle SA’s high crime rate has attracted the interest of the international community, according to the safety and security department.

Trevor Bloem, spokesman for the department, said on Friday: “Something of this nature has never been undertaken before and there has been a lot of interest expressed by governments overseas who are anxious to see if it works.”

Four working groups and a leadership forum consisting of SA’s justice, crime prevention and security ministers, and business leaders, will meet next month to discuss progress on tasks assigned in December to target the high crime rate.

A high-level meeting was held in August last year between business and a government delegation including President Thabo Mbeki after a number of particularly violent crimes, among them the Jeppestown shoot-out, where 12 people — four of them policemen — were killed.

Statistics collected by Business Against Crime suggest that, despite government’s insistence to the contrary, violent crime had risen 25%-30% in the 18 months prior to the meeting.

Business felt that its organisation, Business Against Crime, had succeeded in many areas in addressing crime and in increasing co-operation between business and government, but that greater co-operation was needed with all sectors of the safety and security cluster for the benefits to be felt.

Four working groups set up with representatives from government and business met in December last year and set about assigning roles in the fight against crime. The groups each had a different focus — a review of the criminal justice system; violent organised crime, baseline effectiveness, as well as mobilising public communication and innovations to fight crime.

When the four groups meet next month, they are expected to have developed targets and tasks, as well as short-term solutions, where possible. “Groups also need to spell out what they require in terms of people, skills, financial resources, information and effectiveness,” said Bloem.

A number of high-profile business leaders were the target of crime last year, but the main concern was decreasing investor confidence caused by the perception that SA was losing its battle against crime, which Bloem said needed to be addressed urgently.

This urgency is partly as a result of SA hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup, an event that is expected to attract at least 250000 foreign visitors to the country.

The concern is not unfounded.

In November last year, the new US ambassador to SA, Eric Bost, said in an interview published in a Sunday newspaper, and which received worldwide coverage, that few people would travel to the 2010 World Cup in SA if crime continued at current levels.

This was despite SA’s impeccable security record at previous events such as the rugby union and cricket world cups of 1995 and 2003.

Bost, a black Republican, warned that crime was the first concern of nearly every ambassador he had met in SA, and of the US investor community.

“I look at things somewhat simplistically on occasion and the issue for me is this: who is going to be interested in spending a significant amount of money coming here on holiday, to have a good time, when they’re concerned about the possibility of getting hurt?” he asked.