{"id":782868,"date":"2024-07-17T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=782868"},"modified":"2024-07-17T10:43:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T08:43:35","slug":"new-police-minister-sends-a-warning-to-construction-mafias-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/782868\/new-police-minister-sends-a-warning-to-construction-mafias-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminal mafias in the crosshairs of new police minister in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The newly appointed police minister, Senzo Mchunu, said that funding would be allocated to fight crimes impacting economic activity, warning extortion mafias\u2014especially in construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the State Investigating Unit (SIU), the extortion mafia refers to extortion groups that seek to forcefully extract protection fees from public projects and local construction companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can also extort a portion of the cost of an infrastructure project or allow members of the mafia to work on the site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These mafias are estimated to cost the economy around R68 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evidence of their proliferation<\/a> is that these groups are embedded in all major sectors, including Eskom, Transnet, water and sanitation, and the construction industry, with incidents spanning across the major provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deon van Zyl, chair of the Western Cape Property Developers Forum<\/a>, also noted that construction mafias target public projects far more than private ones due to cumbersome government processes like procurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike private sector projects, where individuals or teams work throughout an entire project, public projects are often a \u201crelay,\u201d where several departments carry out certain roles throughout the process. Van Zyl said that this leaves many projects as \u201csitting ducks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CEO of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), Busi Mavuso, previously warned that organised crime is fast emerging as the biggest threat to South Africa\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said that crime syndicates, which have already captured large industries across various sectors, are now more damaging than bad policy or service delivery failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To protect the country\u2019s economy from criminal activities, Mchunu said the economic infrastructure task teams\u2014supported by organised crime investigation capabilities\u2014will focus on combating crimes such as illegal mining, infrastructure-related crimes and extortion in all business sectors, particularly the construction sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specialised capabilities, including the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, forensic services, and crime intelligence, are said to be able to address these issues with internal and external stakeholders effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Newly appointed Minister of Police, Senzo Mchunu. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cEfforts to tackle organised crime, money laundering, and terror financing will continue in line with recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is an urgent need for a more strategic and consolidated response to organised crime, which imposes a real existential threat to our economy and democracy,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese initiatives will be implemented through the Detective Services Programme and the Crime Intelligence Programme, with respective budgets of R71.3 billion and R15.1 billion over the medium term,\u201d Mchunu added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minister underscored the importance of increasing efforts to identify and remove gangs and criminal groups involved in drug-related and extortion crimes and restoring safety and order in the affected communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He maintained that targeting the criminal networks will disrupt the supply chains and operations that fuel violence and instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnhanced intelligence gathering, dedicated task forces, and collaborative operations with other law enforcement agencies will strengthen the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) ability to combat organised crime effectively,\u201d Mchunu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new minister said that additional funding allowed the SAPS to enlist 10,000 employees during the 2022\/2023 and 2023\/2024 budget periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that additional funding will allow the department to appoint another 10,000 police trainees for the current financial year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read: New state-owned company for water in South Africa coming in 2025<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newly appointed Police Minister Senzo Mchunu outlined the department’s commitments for this year, which include clamping down on organised crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":699335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-782868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782868"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782927,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782868\/revisions\/782927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}