Checking driver credentials is crucial to avoid theft

Transporters should always conduct background checks on their drivers and obtain as much information about them as possible before employing them. This is the advice from Cas Weeks of Africargo and Transit Surveys, a company that attends to cargo and risk assessment assignments on behalf of both local and overseas insurers, brokers and clearing agents. “Over the past 12 months we have investigated no fewer than 85 hijacking incidents where drivers have been implicated in the thefts. Of interest is that 80% of those drivers are foreign nationals,” says Weeks. With special expertise in the investigation of claims arising out of hijacking, theft, fraud, goods in transit, warehouse risk and warehouse inspection surveys as well as pre- and post-discharge surveys and general condition surveys, Africargo says it is important that transporters make sure they know the people they are employing. “The large number of foreign nationals entering South Africa has resulted in a flood of foreign drivers being available for local employment. In most instances no background checks are conducted on these drivers and very limited information is obtained from the person before they are employed by a transporter. It is concerning that in most instances the transporters do not know or check who the driver’s previous employer was, confirm his cross-border address, obtain details of his wife, children, next of kin or even take a photograph of him before offering him employment. It seems that in most instances drivers simply provide a local address, their licence, a copy of their Asylum Seekers’ Permit and Road Traffic Register Certificate and are handed the keys to expensive rigs transporting, in some instances, even more expensive cargo,” says Weeks. “The syndicates operating in South Africa and cross border are well organised. They identify transporters that are carrying certain types of cargo, befriend and recruit their drivers and in most instances the cargo is sold and the driver paid before it disappears. Cargo valued at R1m is sold in some instances for as little as R40 000 by drivers to these syndicates. The drivers then simply disappear back across the border. Due to the organised nature of these ‘reported’ hijackings the driver and cargo are almost never located and this is thanks largely to relevant driver information not being available timeously.”