Black business people are being urged to play a vital role in the fight against crime in South Africa.
Kenny Fihla, the new CEO of Business against Crime SA (BAC), intends to bring black business into the organisation.
”Black business can play an important role in the partnership with government against crime.
”In fact, I believe that they could emerge as a key factor in the fight and become a vital part of the organisation,” Fihla said. Fihla has worked for the Johannesburg City Council for the past seven years. In the past two and half years, he headed its finance, strategy and economic development department.
He recovered the financial woes it faced to record a healthy surplus for three successive years. Fihla, 36, intends to attract business, especially black business, to the organisation.
The organisation was established in 1996 in response to a request from former president Nelson Mandela who invited business to join hands with the government to do battle against crime.
The organisation attempts to complement government resources with South African business’s considerable entrepreneurial, managerial and technological skills.
Fihla said: ”BAC has successful projects where it partnered government to fight crime. I am going to look at opportunities of strengthening the partnership in the fight against crime.
We need to strike the balance and also commend the good work the organisation has done”. He called on black business people to get involved.
”The broader their involvement, the more their influence in expanding the ranks of BAC”. ”I am going to broaden it in a sensible manner”. He also pointed out that it would be short-sighted for South Africans to ignore the fact that big business was still run by white people, and that because of this the organisation’s input towards solving the crime problem had come mainly from white business.
”Imagine how much broader the impact against crime if we have a much broader involvement from the black business sector. ”I am not undermining the good work that has been done by BAC up to so far, but I need to encourage black business to be part of its projects.”
”I am going to approach various black business, interact with these people and call them to be part of us,” he said. ”I have to look at whether or not we are focusing on the right strategy that will help us fight crime.
I also have to ensure that the organisation reaches out to as many stakeholders as possible”. He said another issue was to keep South Africans informed on the crime-fighting organisation’s projects so that the public can understand the partnership.
”I am going to jack up the communication channels internally and externally so that people can understand what we do”. When asked what role the organisation could play in helping to eliminate the cash-in-transit robberies, Fihla said it, government and the banking sector had been working together for some time.
”We need to ask ourselves how do we ensure that we act in a manner that will fight this sort of crime?” ”We have excellent managers in strategy-formulation who, for example, are capable of formulating a strategy that will make life difficult for criminals to commit these crimes,” he said.
He also pointed out that the partnership was not about the institution providing financial assistance or infrastructure to police stations, but was collaboration on a wide range of other issues. ”We need to do things differently, in the fight against crime,” he said. — Sapa