Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed to take action against the construction Mafia and their associates by deploying special teams to arrest them.
He announced the establishment of 20 task teams to combat illegal mining, the construction Mafia, and those involved in stripping the country of essential infrastructure.
The president said that the police have already arrested 70 individuals linked to the construction Mafia.
While responding to inquiries in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on a Thursday, Ramaphosa stressed the utmost importance of dismantling the construction Mafia and syndicates responsible for infrastructure damage.
Members of the NCOP had expressed concerns to the president about the potentially severe disruptions to the construction industry caused by the construction mafia.
According to EWN, the Democratic Alliance’s Tim Brauteseth suggested that the issue had evolved beyond construction and proposed the creation of a special hotline for reporting cases, likening the situation to classic mafia practices.
President Cyril Ramaphosa says progress is being made to strengthen the witness protection programme to protect business owners who are threatened by organised crime syndicates like the so called construction mafia. #sabcnews
— SAfm news (@SAfmnews) October 12, 2023
“It’s morphed into classic mafia practice,” Brauteseth said.
In response, Ramaphosa informed the NCOP that task teams have been dispatched nationwide to apprehend those affiliated with the construction Mafia and safeguard against project disruptions.
He said he had had discussions with Minister of Police Bheki Cele and National Commissioner Fannie Masemola regarding the reinforcement of specialised task forces.
“I am glad to hear that you have taken note of the activity that is now getting under way in a much more vigorous way with regard to dealing with these criminals, who go to building sites and try to extort money. But as you correctly say, they have now morphed into something else, they are now gangs that go around intimidating businesspeople, 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. It’s not only to the businesspeople, it’s also to the workers because as those thugs get to building sites they also attack workers and they subject workers to great pressure to do wrong things from time to time.
“We are going to go after those gangs, we are going to go after those people who hijack building sites,” IOL quoted Ramaphosa as saying.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
