SURGING rates of murder, extortion and kidnapping are among signs that crime is posing an “existential” threat to South Africa, according to a report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.
The murder rate has risen 38% since 2010, the number of kidnappings for ransom has quadrupled, and there is a R187 billion annual impact from infrastructure theft such as the looting of copper-power cables, the Geneva-based group said in a report released on Wednesday. All of these are signs that the state is struggling to contain criminal activity, it said.
“Organised crime is an existential threat to South Africa’s democratic institutions, economy and people,” Mark Shaw, the director of the group, said in an introduction to the 206-page document. “It often lies behind and connects numerous seemingly disparate criminal incidents we see occurring in South Africa every day.”
GI-TOC, as the group is known, places the blame on
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