Wyndham Hartley
BDFM Online
Friday, November 17, 2006
CAPE TOWN - With the country bracing itself for the seasonal spike in cash-in-transit heists and armed robbery normally associated with Christmas, government charged that private security companies are not doing enough to secure the safety of their employees.
Statements from deputy ministers follow threats of strike action by security guards doing cash-in-transit duty and calls from unions and companies for the military to be used to protect cash in transit.
Cash-in-transit heists are usually conducted with military precision by men armed with assault rifles.
Deputy Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba, speaking during a media briefing from the criminal justice cluster of departments, said it was not only the police who had to respond to increased criminal action over the holiday season.
He took aim at the private security industry, saying they won the contracts to transport cash around the country but when there were heists, the calls were for government to improve the protection of private security operations.
"Government did not win the contracts to perform these services," Gigaba said, adding that the security companies could not just sit back and say "government must do this and government must do that".
He said security companies transporting cash should do what many other businesses did at this time of the year - increase their security.
Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange supported Gigaba, saying there was only one cash-in-transit company that had appropriate vehicles.
Most had vans that could easily be overturned by cars driven by robbers.
The company he referred to used larger vehicles that could not easily be overturned.
De Lange also challenged a suggestion that private security companies were better resourced than the police, saying many security guards were poorly trained and paid slave wages.
He said one security guard had said he had not used his firearm for 20 years.
"How does an industry that transports R5bn a day have the kind of equipment and training they have?"
He stressed he was not suggesting that the police should not do their work, but was saying the private security industry should begin by making sure it also put its house in order.