Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
‘Private prosecutions will reduce nut theft’
With the macadamia harvesting season imminent, the industry has been warned to increase its vigilance in order to prevent nut theft.
Lizel Pretorius, CEO of Macadamias South Africa (SAMAC), said that up to R200 million worth of nuts per season had been stolen in the past. This was from an industry valued at about R1 billion.
To date, however, there had not been a single successful prosecution of thieves, despite SAMAC making resources, surveillance equipment and intelligence available to the South African Police Service (SAPS) and its Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks).
The organisation had therefore established a crime support desk that would actively follow up on cases reported to the SAPS, Pretorius said.
SAMAC had also contracted the services of AfriForum’s private prosecutions unit to ensure that cases were heard in court. Pretorius added that members who had been victims of theft could now submit their SAPS case numbers and supporting documents or evidence to the crime support desk.
“Progress with the investigation [of a] case will be monitored from both the SAPS and prosecution sides, and action will be taken where unnecessary delays are observed.” She noted that incidences of macadamia nut theft were increasing, and the many role players involved made it a complicated crime to prosecute successfully. “But we can’t continue to see nothing happening.”
Advocate Gerrie Nel, head of AfriForum’s private prosecutions, noted that the collapse of the criminal justice system was widespread, which was why the association, together with SAMAC, had extended its strategy to focus on more direct prosecutions.
“Just to get the National Prosecution Authority and SAPS to perform their duties means we need to get a court order to force them. We’ll continue to do so until we see action being taken and there are successful prosecutions. We live in an age where we can’t just rely on the SAPS to prevent crime, just as we can’t rely on the public health system.”
Nel said that because macadamia farmers made up a relatively small and concentrated industry, the proper sharing of intelligence would not only be easier, but also valuable for gaining successful prosecutions.
“Macadamias are only sold via specific channels, so if anyone else is trading nuts outside of that system, we can assume they were stolen. The crime support desk will go a long way towards gathering this information and pinpointing thieves.”
Pretorius added that the crime desk would aid in storing statistical data that would be used to identify trends and highlight crime hotspots. – Lindi Botha