For South Africans, normality is a sliding scale. <\/p>\n
Record electricity blackouts\u00a0and sustained water outages have crushed businesses,\u00a0and caused havoc in hospitals and schools\u00a0nationwide.\u00a0It\u2019s common to see car-sized potholes\u00a0in the suburbs of Johannesburg as workmen weld burst pipes. Traffic light outages are a daily occurrence. <\/p>\n
The privations are often treated with the nation\u2019s\u00a0trademark humor. <\/p>\n
But now,\u00a0even\u00a0extraordinary,\u00a0violent\u00a0events have\u00a0also\u00a0become almost commonplace. In October, a heavily armed gang blocked off one of the busiest highways near Johannesburg as it\u00a0blew up a cash-in-transit vehicle \u2013\u00a0a security van carrying cash. <\/p>\n
Video of the heist\u00a0was captured on cell phones in real-time. Bystanders can be heard\u00a0giving running commentary from an\u00a0overpass. <\/p>\n
Cash-in-transit, or CIT,\u00a0heists are one of the most dramatic illustrations of a crime wave that has shocked even the most hardened\u00a0South\u00a0Africans.\u00a0Murder is at a 20-year high; someone is killed in the country\u00a0roughly every 20\u00a0minutes, according to the most recent quarterly police crime statistics. <\/p>\n
Other serious crimes are also\u00a0on the rise. In 2022-23, recorded cases of\u00a0kidnapping increased by 41.7%, attempted murders rose\u00a0by 13.7%,\u00a0while reported\u00a0carjacking incidents\u00a0increased by 8.5%,\u00a0compared to the previous year, according to annual statistics. Meanwhile, CIT heists remained at the same level as the year before, with 238 incidents recorded. <\/p>\n
South Africa is approaching a critical election and the ruling\u00a0African National\u00a0Congress\u00a0(ANC)\u00a0could lose its majority for the first time since Nelson Mandela led it to power 30 years ago\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the crime crisis is front and center. And the social impact, of course, goes far beyond the shock value of viral videos. <\/p>\n
TT Ngwenya, a father-of-four and\u00a0former cash-in-transit guard, shuffled up the stairs to his apartment\u00a0in downtown Johannesburg earlier this month, one hand gripping a crutch, the other holding the rail. The elevators were broken. <\/p>\n
He recalled the incident in May 2021 in which the van he was guarding was targeted by a gang. <\/p>\n
The CIT gang hit Ngwenya and his co-worker, who was driving, quickly and hard, crashing into their armored vehicle with a heavy sedan to disable it. <\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot stand for a long time. I can only stand for three minutes. I am always in pain,\u201d said\u00a0Ngwenya, who\u00a0says he\u00a0is currently on temporary disability allowance from his company\u2019s insurers \u2013 but hopes to get a permanent payout from them. <\/p>\n
He knows that he is one of the luckier ones. When CIT guards get killed\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and they are frequently killed\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the local news rarely mentions their names. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so bad because it seems that every day you lose a member. It\u2019s so bad because every day you wonder whether you will come back,\u201d said\u00a0Petrus Mthembu, the president of the Motor Transport Workers Union, who works in the CIT industry and has been hit by gangs himself. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know whether you will survive, which tells you there is no stability within the country,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Like anywhere in the world, there are push factors for crime, including inequality and a lack of jobs.\u00a0South\u00a0Africa\u00a0has the highest unemployment in the world, at about 32% in the last quarter of 2023. Youth unemployment is more than 40%. <\/p>\n
He admits that he was addicted to the fast cash, as he calls it, saying for one hit each gang member netted around R350,000\u00a0(about $18,500.) <\/p>\n
The gang\u00a0had spotters and shooters, he said, some with specialized military training. They used a team of 10 to 15 people\u00a0and, he claims,\u00a0they frequently got guns and intelligence from the police. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many corrupt cops, too many,\u201d\u00a0he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cDuring this period, 46 CIT armed robberies took place, which is 11 counts lower than the previous crime reporting period,\u201d the speech said. The police recovered firearms including rifles and AK-47s, it added. <\/p>\n
Security and intelligence experts say that the CIT epidemic, and the crime crisis in general, come down to a lack of targeted policing and intelligence. They say there are good cops in the system, but that they are demotivated and underpaid. The police have also been struck by multiple corruption scandals over the years. <\/p>\n
The\u00a0South\u00a0African police minister, Bheki Cele, recently highlighted what he called the successes of the Crime Intelligence division in tackling organized crime\u00a0and rooting out corruption within the ranks of the force. <\/p>\n
\u201cOrganized crime at this point is completely out of hand, you have corruption across the board from the lowest to the highest levels,\u201d said\u00a0Joe van der Walt, the founder and\u00a0chief executive\u00a0of Focus Group, a private intelligence company with corporate clients. \u201cYou need a strategy that is being followed in order to tackle crime.\u201d <\/p>\n
That strategy, for many companies and wealthier\u00a0South\u00a0Africans, is to turn to\u00a0private intelligence, investigations and security.\u00a0There are\u00a0more than half a million active private security guards\u00a0in the country, according to the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fast-growing industry \u2013 and its members are equipped\u00a0with manpower and gear far outgunning the police. But even they are feeling the toll. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese companies are not investing in new products, research, and development to become better. But you are spending a hell of a lot of money to maintain your operations, so you don\u2019t lose the war against crime,\u201d said\u00a0Gareth Newham, the head of justice and violence prevention\u00a0at the Institute for\u00a0Security Studies.\u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s driving the increase in murders is more related to organized crime or organized forms of crime.\u201d <\/p>\n
For\u00a0Ngwenya, the crime crisis is deeply personal and life-changing. He knew the risks of guarding the CIT truck, he said, but he needed the money. <\/p>\n
On a recent Tuesday afternoon,\u00a0as his children\u00a0started to file in from school, he lay\u00a0nearly prone on his sofa. He struggles to afford their education fees, he said, and doesn\u2019t have the money to buy airtime on his phone. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went to work there, I knew I could be killed,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cBut you must not think about that, otherwise you will never work for your children.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
For South Africans, normality is a sliding scale. Record electricity blackouts\u00a0and sustained water outages have crushed businesses,\u00a0and caused havoc in hospitals and schools\u00a0nationwide.\u00a0It\u2019s common to see car-sized potholes\u00a0in the suburbs of Johannesburg as workmen weld burst pipes. Traffic light outages are a daily occurrence. The privations are often treated with the nation\u2019s\u00a0trademark humor. But now,\u00a0even\u00a0extraordinary,\u00a0violent\u00a0events <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}