The City of Cape Town is taking drastic action to stop extortionists who have been crippling the construction industry.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis on Thursday launched an anti-extortion campaign under the slogan “Enough is Enough” and appealed to residents to be the eyes and ears of the City in their bid to fight the “extortion mafia”.
As part of the campaign, the City has set up a 24-hour hotline (0800 00 6992) and rewards system to encourage residents to piemp extortionists, with billboards set to be rolled out along major routes, showing the public how to report it.
Law enforcement will also escort City teams and contractors in hotspot areas.
At the same time on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to send special teams to target the construction mafia nationwide, saying they will not rest until kingpins and their associates have been arrested. He said government has set up 20 task teams to go after illegal miners, the construction mafia and those who are stripping the country’s infrastructure.
Ramaphosa said: “They have now morphed into something else, they are now gangs that go around intimidating business people, taking over building sites.
“We are aware of this and that is why the task teams have been enhanced. That is why we are deploying enormous resources to enable them to do their work.”
Ramaphosa said workers also suffer as the thugs threaten them into committing crimes on sites.
The City of Cape Town’s anti-extortion campaign was launched at the construction site for a new MyCiTi depot in Khayelitsha.
The R60 million project has already suffered multiple extortion attempts since May, which have delayed work.
Hill-Lewis said: “Extortion is large-scale organised crime run by well-oiled and very lucrative syndicates. Demands for protection fees from local extortionists are impeding both basic service delivery and major infrastructure projects.
“Today we are launching a public-facing campaign because the most powerful people that can help us are the residents.”
From the R11 billion infrastructure budget, the City has spent an additional R55m for security to protect construction sites.
“We have got more construction sites, and more construction workers than ever before, but sadly some of these sites have come to a halt like the Delft Symphony Way housing project site,” Hill-Lewis explained.
A R1m reward is still waiting to be claimed for information leading to an arrest for the murder of City employee Wendy Kloppers, who was gunned down in front of the Delft site on February 16.
Meanwhile, Mayco member for Safety and Security, JP Smith, said arrests are imminent.
“I don’t want to give too much insight into the state of the investigation but I can tell you we have made great progress and you will see some arrests in the next week or two,” Smith said.
byron.lukas@inl.co.za