The Black Business Chamber (BBC) said on Monday that it was perturbed by Investec’s decision to spend R2 million a year on each of its directors’ personal security, highlighting that corporates needed to be more ‘forward thinking’ in South Africa’s increasing unequal society.
In what appears to be a first for South Africa, banking and wealth management group Investec said last week that it would be spending as much as $121 520 (about R2 million) a year on each of its executive directors’ personal security as crime levels in the country surge.
Mntuwekhaya “Khaya” Cishe, the BBC Secretary General, said in a statement: “While kidnappings have been reported to be on the rise by South African crime data, but it is just unimaginable that the company would spend such huge some’s of money on each director.”
The statement comes after it emerged last week that while Investec executives previously paid for security services themselves, the cover by the company was approved by shareholders at the lender’s annual general meeting (AGM).
“The personal security arrangements are something which we feel we need to put in place for the executives based in South Africa. The measure was introduced given that they are high-profile, and given the number of other examples that are around of high-profile business people and other people being targeted,” Henrietta Baldock, chairperson of the bank’s remuneration committee, said at the AGM.
South African crime data published by the government shows that kidnappings more than doubled in the three months through to March to 3 306 incidents, while the number of sexual offences increased by 14 percent to 13 799.
Each of South Africa’s nine provinces has seen an increase in kidnappings.
The economic centre of Gauteng has seen more than 1500 cases of abduction in the first quarter of the year.
That’s almost three times the number of incidents in the same period last year.
BBC said that according to the World Bank Report in March, South Africa was ranked as the most unequal country in the world.
“In a country described as unequal as South Africa, one would expect that crime can only rise. That would be the only means that justify the end. BBC is calling for all corporates to be forward looking,” it said.
Cishe said it had been widely reported that small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) held a key to economic growth and job creation. Therefore, the forward looking would mean that corporates should start to invest in a de-racialised SMME development, job creation and poverty alleviation efforts.
However, the opposite was true, the class divide and the economic imbalance is becoming bigger.
“There is no levels of high walls and security that will ever be a solution to crime problems in South Africa, only a transformed economy where corporates are playing their part in meaningful de-racialised SMME development and creation of decent employment opportunities,” Cishe said.
BUSINESS REPORT