Mafia shakedown

CONSTRUCTION: MORE THAN 700 ARRESTS HAVE BEEN MADE IN 5 YEARS

- Roy Cokayne

Secrecy 'the biggest challenge' around extortion, says Mathale.

A total of 722 arrests have been made since 2019 related to acts of extortion in South Africa, including for the disruption of construction sites by the construction mafia.

Brigadier Lucas Ramangwa, section head of National Special Operations and Investigations at the Organised Crime Detective Service of the South African Police Service (Saps), said on Monday this had resulted in a total of 89 years and seven months imprisonment for the perpetrators of the crimes.

Ramangwa was speaking at a Master Builders South Africa (MBSA) webinar on “Construction … Undisrupted”.

He indicated these arrests and convictions had occurred since the establishment of the National Priority Committee on Extortions in 2019.

Deputy Minister of Police Cassel Mathale said SA was increasingly witnessing the emergence of a new kind of criminality in the form of organised groups targeting the economic sectors under the banner of “radical economic transformation”.

Mathale said these entities had organised themselves into groups known as “local business forums” and they invade various sector sites across the country, demanding money or a stake in development projects.

“This kind of business sabotage impacts negatively on economic and infrastructure development including investor confidence,” said Mathale.

“ Non - compliance to their demands result(s) in destruction of properties, work stoppages, threat(s) to lives or even death. This is extortion at its peak.”

MBSA executive director Roy Mnisi said illegal construction site invasions had not only devastated the construction sector, but also adversely affected national economic growth, causing a huge infrastructure development backlog and loss of employmeat.