Decrease in crime seen during first week of lockdown: Fidelity
The Fidelity Services Group has seen a decline in the number of reported criminal activities during the first week of South Africa’s coronavirus lockdown, says group chief executive officer, Wahl Bartmann.
He said that this decline is likely due to the restricted movement rules introduced by the lockdown as well as the increased police and SANDF presence. He added that that Fidelity’s teams continue to proactively patrol the streets.
“Our teams have continued to patrol and respond to any emergencies as normal, we have provided them with PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) to reduce any potential risk during this time and implemented a Virtual Agent system for our customers to cancel any false alarms further reducing physical interaction with our officers,” he said.
Bartmann added that the group has not seen an increase in business-related crime.
“We have seen a marked decline in home alarm installations – our teams cannot access homes at this time but we are still receiving requests for service. However, our officers and existing customers have not been affected by the lockdown,” he said.
“We did not see a marked change in customer behaviour, although many customers did opt to have their existing technical/ maintenance or system upgrade appointments moved to before or after the lockdown. The company has continued to service/upgrade and install alarms for customers who have insisted during the lockdown.”
Much like other businesses which are dealing with the lockdown, Bartmann said that the greatest challenge his company has faced was moving to a remote working environment for its back-office staff.
“However, we navigated this challenge well and our back office and support teams continue to work remotely,” he said.
“Our officers, call centre agents and other field staff have continued to report for duty as normal and we are extremely proud of how well our staff have offered their assistance during this time of crisis for the country.”
National statistics
In relation to gender based violence, police minister Bheki Cele said that the number of complaints remained high and therefore concerning. Over 2 300 calls/complaints were registered.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday (2 April), the minister said that a number of people have also been arrested for breaching the country’s lockdown regulations.
“What has been a dampener since the beginning of the lockdown has been the consistently high number of people arrested for violating the lockdown regulations,” he said.
Cele said that the SAPS made 2,298 arrests on 30 March alone, while the total sum of arrests had reached over 17 000 since the start of the lockdown by 31 March 2020.
The provincial breakdown of total arrests is as follows:
- Gauteng – 1,888
- Western Cape – 4,769
- KwaZulu Natal – 1,845
- Eastern Cape – 1,613
- Northern Cape – 832
- North West – 1,562
- Free State – 3,098
- Mpumalanga – 752
- Limpopo – 850
- Total – 17,209
“Ideally, we would prefer that our communities and all stakeholders cooperate and comply to minimise the risk of exposure of both themselves as well as our 24,389 law enforcement members to the Covid-19.
“We really do not want to arrest people but to contain the spread of the virus,” said Cele.
He added that members of the SAPS, the SANDF, metro police departments and all law enforcement agencies will remain on deployment throughout the lockdown period.
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