A Johannesburg logistics business owner plans to take action against the police after his trucks have been repeatedly targeted by looters who freely carried away beer cargo while uniformed police officers watched and did nothing.
Nelen Gounder, CEO of Sesfigile Logistics, the owner of the truck that was captured on video being looted on the N1 to Bloemfontein at the weekend, while two police officers watched calmly and did nothing to arrest the suspects, plans to file a complaint with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid).
Gounder said the latest incident, which went viral on Twitter after it was shared by Yusuf Abramjee, was followed by a second incident on Tuesday this week in Pretoria, when looters stopped one of his trucks and looted it of beer, again while police watched. He said looters had also targeted and looted one of his trucks in Pongola in March and police had done nothing at the scene to arrest the suspects.
“The problem now is that when people see a Sesfigile Logistics truck they assume that it is carrying beer, but we do also carry other cargo, so it can be any truck that they are hitting. Sometimes, the police know there is a truck carrying beer, and if there is a roadblock will even direct them to a place where people can loot. In Pongola, they redirected the truck to a township,” Gounder said.
He is still calculating the losses and has handed the matter to his insurers and opened a case of theft.
“If we open a case of theft and then try and open a second case against the police (for their inaction), the first case goes away. Insurance will basically pay for the loads, but we end up paying excess and we lose and the insurer increases our premium by about 15% for the whole fleet,” he said.
Gounder added that he had resorted to hiring a private security firm, which employed armed guards, to respond quickly to the scene of looting incidents. He said the firm’s quick response on Tuesday had limited his losses to just four pallets of beer.
He’s also concerned about the secondary impact of the crime, the free flow of alcohol into communities.
“We are going into the festive season, and I am concerned not just for myself but also for other businesses because this is not just one incident leading to nothing. The trucks carry 36 tonnes of alcohol, and the looters will drink and be drunk and attack their own people and cause more deaths,” he said.
“Even if the police did something to show they are a little supportive of us, it will stop this trend (of looting).”
Gounder said he planned to file a complaint about the police with Ipid.
Road Freight Association CEO Gavin Kelly earlier said that looting of trucks was a “disease” in the country unlike in other African states where communities arrived to assist truck drivers and protect the cargo.
He said it was unacceptable that the police had not intervened to stop the looting.
“Again, scenes of looting are doing the rounds on social media of a truck looted after an incident, and the SAPS are calmly standing alongside and watching. No intervention. No attempt to protect property. Not acceptable. This has to stop. The SAPS needs to perform the most basic of tasks related to the rule of law or we as a country will be done for,” Kelly said. SAPS had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
