By Tswelopele Makoe
IN RECENT weeks, there has been an unsettling spike in the occurrence of extortion mafias that are running amok across the nation. From small businesses and restaurants to schools and community centres, mafias demanding pay-offs from businesses have become a fast-growing societal challenge, one that is sadly spreading more rapidly than it is mitigated.
Essentially, extortion mafias – also referred to as “protection mafias” – threaten businesses, individuals, and communities across the length and breadth of our nation, demanding “protection fees” from hard-working businesses through the use of violence, threats, or sabotage if their demands are not acceded to.
Incidents of extortion initially began sporadically, being spotlighted as far back as 2015, with attacks on small businesses and individuals. In almost no time they have escalated into widespread, systematic threats ravaging the country. According to some statistics, extortion mafias have cost the national economy about R68 billion to date.
Just last month, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu assured Parliament that authorities were intensifying their crackdown on the construction mafias.
The construction mafias are a set of extortion groups that are forcefully coercing local construction companies into paying unwarranted fees, sabotaging lawful projects aimed at bringing about a better life through, among others, employment of locals. This is the case for all extortion syndicates – the forceful, often violent solicitation of bribes from innocent businesses.
In the Western Cape, extortion syndicates have been running rampant for nearly a decade. Being an economic hub with a long history of gang violence and extortion, Cape Town is particularly susceptible to these syndicates.
Money, goods and services are being consistently extorted from a wide array of businesses, including nightclubs, spaza shops, salons, healthcare facilities, construction companies, transport companies, individuals, and even roadside traders.
What has been especially highlighted about these syndicates is that they are highly organised and operate in a range of sectors.
For example in Philippi, Samora Machel, Gugulethu, Nyanga and Khayelitsha townships, essential services personnel such as water management and waste collection have been repeatedly forced to withdraw from work, fearing for the safety of their own personnel.
Extortion syndicates will often hold workers at gunpoint, demanding that they stop work until their bosses pay up.
Earlier this year, City Press reported that a 62-year-old Mpumalanga school principal, who had retired merely a month earlier, had been repeatedly threatened by extortion syndicates that were demanding 30% of her pension funds.
These threats were so severe that the very next day she found her dogs poisoned and her car tyres slashed. She was also threatened with death if she dared to report these threats and incidents to the police.
Extortion syndicates are rampant across our society. Their threats and criminality have led to the closure of innumerable businesses, schools, and establishments.
A prime example is Laphumikwezi Primary School in Mthatha West’s Khayelitsha community, which permanently shut its doors after extortion syndicates demanded money for a cellular network tower on the school grounds, and then assaulted the deputy principal in front of the pupils for refusing to hand over school funds.
These are only a few cases amongst the plethora of incidents of violence recorded on the trail of extortion syndicates.
Across the nation, the shadowy world of extortion mafias has become an increasingly critical issue, not only impacting business owners but also ordinary citizens.
These criminal organisations operate with a disturbing level of sophistication and violence, exploiting vulnerabilities and information in communities and industries.
The rise of these mafias has not only heightened fears across society, but also strained law enforcement resources, revealing a concerning gap in the country's fight against organised crime.
Understanding the motivations and impacts of these extortion syndicates is not enough. There must be intentional measures and mechanisms that stop them in their tracks.
Social media has especially been heightened in the discourses surrounding extortion mafias in South Africa. Many believe that the ineptitudes and corruption that are rampant in the government are encouraging the emergence of more extortion and criminal syndicates.
Eastern Cape Chamber of Business president Vuyisile Ntlabathi has asserted that there are police officers who collude with extortion groups, which exacerbates the distrust and fear associated with reporting these crimes.
The dangers posed by extortion mafias in society are manifold and deeply destabilising. Their tactics often involve harassment, intimidation, psychological and physical harm, resulting in a climate of fear that stifles economic activity and undermines social cohesion.
As more businesses are coerced into paying protection money, the costs are inevitably passed on to consumers, resulting in broader economic instability and fractured economic systems.
Additionally, the pervasive threat of violence and extortion erodes trust within communities and weakens the rule of law. This not only further intensifies criminal activity, but also impedes any efforts to build safer, more resilient communities.
At the core of this issue is that there are criminals that are terrorising our society at will. What is happening is unconstitutional and undemocratic. Former US president Dwight Eisenhower once fiercely said: “Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.”
Ultimately extortion syndicates undermine the legitimacy of the democratically elected government. They undermine the rule of law and encourage delinquency and criminality in our society.
Violent coercion is, plainly put, downright unlawful. Construction mafias are an affront to the human rights and protections that are provided our nation’s Constitution. Demanding a local “tax” is in essence a quasi-political act, a feature of places where gangs or militias have taken over the rule of law. Their attacks are severely detrimental to critical sectors of our society, particularly service delivery.
Extortion syndicates challenge state authority, upholding the implication that they cannot be stopped by legal means or law enforcement. What is worse is that the primary victims of violence and criminality of extortion groups are everyday citizens. In South Africa - one of the most unequal societies in the world - citizens work strenuously to earn a living or run a business.
In order to mitigate this rampant issue, it is crucial that we undertake effective strategies to combat the intimidation tactics of these marauding criminals, restore security in affected areas, and mitigate the emergence of these syndicates in every sector of our society.
This will entail the collaborative efforts of various sectors of our governance, not only the police, but all of the wider forms of regulatory bodies in the state’s capacity. There are responsibilities that are bestowed on citizens in order to uphold a democracy.
What is especially invaluable is to know one simple truth - eloquently stated by political activist and Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn when he wrote: “Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.”
* Tswelopele Makoe is a Gender & Social Justice Activist and the Editor at Global South Media Network. She is a Researcher and Columnist, published weekly in the Sunday Independent, Independent Online (IOL), Global South Media Network (GSMN), Sunday Tribune and Eswatini Daily News. She is also an Andrew W. Mellon scholar, pursuing an MA Ethics at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, UWC. The views expressed are her own.