Durban — Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has declared the ‘construction mafias’ and extortionists as public enemy number one who must be crushed.
The minister was speaking at a construction summit in Durban on Tuesday. The summit was organised by the Public Works and Infrastructure Department in collaboration with the police as a direct response to the escalating extortion crime, particularly in the construction industry.
The minister said the construction mafias were well organised and has assigned the police’s organised crime unit to deal with them and ensure that all construction sites were crime-free.
“These people who are involved in this type of crime are public enemy number one because it is the public that suffers most when they stop these projects that the government is implementing for the benefit of people. The economy is not growing because of these people so we are declaring them as enemies of the people of South Africa and as a government we will deal with them harshly,” said the minister.
He added that he has roped in the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigations (DCPI) also known as Hawks to get involved particularly to target masterminds behind the extortion in the construction industry. Mchunu said the police have discovered that there are “big fish” who are sitting in posh areas who are benefiting from the extortion, adding that those people were the ones that were sending the armed groups to disrupt projects.
This crime is bigger than what the public thinks. These groups are well-organised and have captured senior people in the supply chain management where tender bids were being decided. So they are the ones that are influencing which company gets what in the construction industry and we are coming for them in their comfort zones,” concluded the minister.
Delivering his keynote address earlier Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson said time for negotiating with criminals for public projects to continue was no longer there and the summit must have difficult conversations, to build understanding, and to develop a concrete plan to permanently bring an end to the criminality and the thuggery.
“The criminal syndicates, who often present themselves as legitimate business forums, have simply delayed too many public and private construction projects because they demanded a portion of the project’s costs. It was clear to me that we would never achieve our vision to turn South Africa into a construction site if we were unable to bring an end to the disruption of construction sites. It is clear to me today that we cannot be negotiating with criminals to allow construction projects to continue,” said Macpherson.
He also clarified the issue of 30%, saying it did not apply to the private sector and even in public sector law says the project must be over R30 million so that local companies must sub-contracted for 30%. Macpherson also dismissed the insinuation that construction disruptions were influenced by the lack of transformation to develop black contractors in the construction industry, saying it was the construction mafias themselves who derailed the government’s plan to develop black businesses since most of the projects disrupted were awarded to black companies.
The summit was also attended by Deputy Finance Minister Ashor Sarupen who represented Finance Minister Enock Godondwana who had to cancel his attendance at the last minute due to a death in his family. The deputy minister said the country’s economy has lost R63bn because of the construction disruptions since 2019.
Another stakeholder that attended was the Black Business Federation which is an umbrella body for registered business forums and has long distanced itself from the construction mafia and condemned its criminal behaviour. Many of the dubious business forums were barred from attending the summit.
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