Building thugs spread
GANGS: INVASION OF CONSTRUCTION SITES TO DEMAND WORK NOW ‘A MODEL’
Community groups follow example of ‘business forums’ and move in on new shopping centres.
They started off invading construction sites in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), demanding 30% of the contract work. It’s now countrywide. Many contractors pay off the gangs rather than have building work disrupted.
They became known as the construction mafia, though they prefer to be called business forums. The business model is so successful it’s being replicated across SA in different sectors of the economy, as local community groups now move in on recently completed shopping and business centres.
Many of the gangs are armed and threatening, demanding that new businesses employ locals rather than trained personnel from outside the area.
All of this stems from new regulations to the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, which allows 30% of all contract value on state construction contracts to be allocated to certain designated groups, including black-owned SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises).
The regulations don’t apply to private sector construction contracts, but this hasn’t deterred the local forums.
Virtually every major construction site in KZN has reportedly been affected by the forums.
Cox Yeats Attorneys partner Peter Barnard has been involved in about 40 cases involving business forums. He’s won interdicts against over 30 of them, preventing them from disrupting sites.
“It’s happening across the country and in many different sectors of the economy. I handled one case in the Eastern Cape last week where a major state-run project has been stopped for over a month by local groups demanding to be employed on the site.
“But the local community, which would benefit from the hospital, ultimately suffers.
“Managers of the construction sites often end up paying off the business forums to make them go away, or hiring some of their members under duress, which only serves to encourage this kind of extortion.”
These groups are now demanding to be employed as refuse collectors, or as tellers in new shopping centres.
Barnard says four groupings are involved, including MK Veteran associations, taxi associations, business forums, and communities. He says the solution is more proactive policing and greater clarity from parliament around regulations over the 30% set aside for SMMEs.
Things got heated last week at the Master Builders Congress in Johannesburg, when construction sector representatives accused police of doing little to solve the spread of crime on building sites. Black Business Council in the Built Environment CEO Gregory Mofokeng said contractors need to absorb as many South Africans as possible. “If not, the youth will create chaos.”