Fed-up security guards call for safer working conditions
HIJACKINGS could be reduced if the money transported by each van was limited and if companies invested in escort vehicles, sirens and emergency lights.
These were some of the demands that fed-up cash-in-transit (CIT) security guards handed to police, the department of transport, the Reserve Bank governor and CIT employers countrywide yesterday.
In East London, about 300 SBV, G4S and Fidelity security guards marched to the Fleet Street police station to hand over the memorandum to station commander General Mxolisi Mqotyana.
Their march comes amid a surge in cashin-transit heists in the country, with 159 cases recorded this year alone.
Motor Transport Workers Union (MTWU) affiliated members, whose work puts their lives in danger daily, told of their fears.
The security guards called for quicker responses from police after CIT cases are reported and stricter gun control laws.
Protest leader Zuko Boyce said: “We understand the police are doing their part in trying to help us but we ask them to up their standards in working with us.”
Guards want their employers to ensure that safety equipment and training is of higher quality and to increase the number of people in each vehicle. Currently is it usually only three – a driver, an assistant driver and one security guard at the back – who transport sometimes millions of rands.
Boyce said each time one of them was killed in a heist, a large number of people were affected.
“We are concerned over these recent heists. It affects everyone in CIT companies. I am a son, I am a husband, and so whatever happens to me will affect a lot of people in my family,” he said.
They urged the transport department to to pass legislation that would result in CIT vehicles being fitted with sirens and emergency lights. This would help as they would not be required to stop at traffic lights, which leaves them vulnerable to attacks.
They also want Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago to put a limit on the amount of cash each vehicle transports.
Security guard Mkhululi Pinki, 25, said he had feared for his life when they were attacked by criminals on the N2 in October last year.
“We were travelling from Willowvale to East London and cars came and tried to push us off the road. They shot at us and that is when I realised we were being robbed. In that moment I knew that this was what I was trained for and I had to fight for my life. I drove faster and we left them behind.”
Mzwanele Xatoto, 39, has been in the CIT industry for nine years.
“On the very first day, when I started working as a security guard, a colleague was shot. I did not think I would continue after that, I thought I would resign after the first month.
“But I need this job because I am trying to make a living, so I continue with my studies.
“It is not safe but we remain positive. We are constantly in fear,” he said.
“It is always a sad moment when we get reports of our colleagues who get attacked and injured on duty.”
In his 10 years of service, Gavin Goliath has lived through a number of heists.
Recalling a King William’s Town heist, he said: “Our colleagues were coming out of a retail store and as the guy with the cash was coming back to the vehicle a civilian just shot at them. Fortunately he was only injured in the hand and no one died but the robbers ran with the money.”
The incident caused one of his colleagues to resign though.
“One of the guys could not take the pressure and he resigned because of that. Even though the company took him through trauma counselling, he still could not carry on after that experience.
“This is what we face. Every day we know that anything can happen and we do not know whether we will get home or not,” he said.
Yesterday’s marches came a day after CIT heist accused Mkhuseli Dangala, 32, appeared before the Fort Beaufort Magistrate’s Court.
He was arrested by the Hawks in Port Elizabeth last Thursday.
His co-accused – Luthando Klaas, 34, Thobani Maduduma, 29, and Anele Dangala, 32 – were arrested last month, shortly after they allegedly robbed a guard who had been loading cash in an ATM at a shopping complex in Fort Beaufort and fled the scene with the money.
Mkhuseli is expected to apply for bail on Monday while the other three will be back in the dock on July 3, Hawks provincial spokeswoman Captain Anelisa Feni said yesterday.