This includes the private security industry as the only rapid reaction force that business and other community sectors can rely on for first-line protection from mass unrest, which always seemed to catch the official security forces unprepared.
Business also appealed to taxi owners not to knowingly transport marauding mobs or groups to commercial centers for purposes of looting.
“The GTCoC calls on the security and taxi industry to assist in protecting the entire community and strategic utility infrastructure such as water and electricity from attack in whichever way they can,” said Klippies Kritzinger, CEO of the Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC).
The GTCoC also urged the national Government to drop its legislation plans to remove self defense as a reason for private gun ownership.
“Self defense in the form Government wants without private gun ownership is a recipe for disaster as it seems incapable of performing its primary duty which is defending citizens and their livelihoods and jobs,” said Kritzinger.
Kritzinger also called on ELM and Provincial Government organs to ensure that sabotage and mob attacks on municipal power and water supply are prevented and do not add to the mass disruption already caused by previous blackouts.
The GTCoC was emphatic in condemning attacks on business in the Vaal this week, saying they destroyed job creation and food security in a region already staggering economically under the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kritzinger said it was clear the business sector and community would have to prepare and organise against not only the present unrest specifically targeting business, but also the rampant criminality which had now taken over and would remain for a long time.
The Vaal is specifically vulnerable to the kind of deliberate economic sabotage attacks launched against business and infrastructure in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal last week after the jailing of Jacob Zuma.
Kritzinger praised quick-thinking car dealerships which removed their stock from public view in the Vaal as well as mall managements which minimised risks to the public through certain actions.
