Durban - Barricade the borders! That is the call from the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport, Community Safety and Liaison, which has announced a plan to place concrete blocks along the length of the province’s 80km border with Mozambique in a move to stem rampant vehicle theft.
The department said syndicates were targeting luxury and 4x4 vehicles in KZN which were being stolen and driven across the porous border.
New Transport MEC, Mxolisi Kaunda, said the Mozambique-KZN border near Manguzi would be sealed with New Jersey Barriers in an ambitious, R90 million project.
The precast, steel reinforced concrete barriers are typically used along highways to separate traffic or to protect pedestrians or workers during construction,
The money has yet to be secured, but the provincial government is in talks with the national Treasury.
The insurance industry and crime experts yesterday welcomed the proposed plan as a step in the right direction.
Kaunda also announced that a police vehicle theft unit, which had been withdrawn, would be reinstated as part of efforts to curb the tide of stolen vehicles across the border.
“To deal with this challenge, Department of Transport conducted a high-level, technical analysis on the infrastructure that can be used to curb the cross-border crime between Mozambique and KZN.
“It was established that 80km of border area needs to be constructed… (and) that should infrastructure be constructed it will have to be concrete slabs which are known as New Jersey Barriers,” he said.
The project would take two years to complete at a proposed cost of about R90m, and 40 volunteers from the community would be trained to assist the police in monitoring the route.
A Johannesburg reseller of the blocks said he sold them second-hand at R890 a metre.
Dawie Buys, the insurance technical adviser at the South African Insurance Association, said vehicles were being smuggled out of the country daily.
He said that through partnerships with the police and the Business Against Crime network and the formation of the SA Insurance Crime Bureau, they had managed to reduce vehicle theft in the past 10 years.
A decade ago, 70% of claims were from theft and hijacking, whereas now, 70% of claims were from accidents, he said.
“We would support the move 100%, we have been working together with the SAPS and the army at the borders,” he said.
“Vehicles are leaving the border daily, the syndicates export the vehicles out of the country through various ways. We are working closely with the police to combat that but we cannot always stop it,” he said.
According to bureau figures reported by the Daily News in 2014, R8.5 billion is lost each year to vehicle theft. Of this, R4.9bn worth of vehicles are taken across the border.
The SAPS referred the Daily News to the army for comment, but an SANDF spokesman could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Johan Burger, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, said the police and the military had struggled for years with the problem and said it was a step in the right direction.
“The South African authorities over the years have tried so many ideas to create barriers, they even tried an electric fence, but the criminals are so innovative, they would find ways to overcome the borders,” he said.
Burger said people crossing the borders were assisted by syndicates who charged them lots of money. He said if the barrier was effective, it could be money well spent.
“By the sound of it, it sounds the barricades may be a bit more formidable. The military put in alarm systems, but the length of the border is too long and they arrived late. This innovation would be a lot more difficult for criminals to overcome.
“A concrete-type of fence would be more difficult – if they succeed by putting up the wall to stop this type of crime, it would be worth it,” he said.