City Deep reports crime-free Christmas THE FESTIVE season at City Deep in Johannesburg has indeed been a festive period for the operators and users of the inland harbour - a previously crime-ridden container terminal.
We were crime-free over the festive season - from November through December, said Isobel Louw, head of Saftainer's container transport operation, Roadwing, and a driving force behind the 18-month long crime-busting exercise that was designed to combat the multi-million rand crime problem.
This Collective Approach strategy was a combined private/public sector task force - composed of private companies' risk managers; the SAPS Container Crime Unit at Kazerne; the SA Border Police; and the Customs & Excise detectives in Johannesburg - that worked the policing of City Deep from May, 1996. And its success rate last year entered the City Deep record books.
So successful was it that there was a 95% reduction in crime; 80% fewer claims; 75% more goods recovered; the discovery of 50% of claims being insurance fraud; 81% more arrests and prosecutions doubling. The current police structure is now working, said Louw. Working so well, she added, that there are only likely to be isolated incidents of petty pilfering, and no urgent areas of criminal activity that need to be addressed this year.
It is always good to be able to report that the police structure is working well, said Louw. And this is one of these areas where we are happy to say: Well done the police - and know that we are going to be able to operate in a crime-free environment.
