Two years ago, Lesego Motshegwa’s sunny Johannesburg Saturday afternoon turned into a nightmare. As she drove into her house, two armed men approached her, hit her on the head with a gun and fired at her family. They ran as the hijack failed by a whisker. Unfortunately, this is just one of many stories in South Africa, one of the hijacking capitals of the world.
According to Crime Stats SA, there were 9,988 reported hijackings in 2013. The figure has declined gradually since 2009’s record of 14,915, but this year it’s likely to get worse when the country’s crime figures are released in September.
“There has been an increase of about 5.4% in the last financial year. Unfortunately, we believe the upward trend we have seen in the last year will continue,” says Johan Burger, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies.
His ominous outlook is being played out on the streets of Gauteng – South Africa’s economic hub and the car capital of Africa.
“Almost half of all the hijackings in South Africa take place in Gauteng.”
The cost of hijacking runs deep.
“In any country that has high levels of crime, it has an impact on the performance of the economy because people are not free to move around, not free to contract, not free to allocate their resources in the economy and inevitably the economy suffers,” says Chief Economist at Efficient Group, Dawie Roodt.
“Additionally, certain crimes like hijacking and murder get a lot of publicity. South Africa is known for its high level of crime and high level of car hijackings as well. The image is that South Africa is not a very friendly place to do business.”
Roodt admits that it is difficult to calculate the cost.
“We do not know what business we are losing out on. We do not know how much money we are losing by way of lost investments. We also do not know what the real cost is to the allocation of resources in the country. We can get information on the number of hijackings we’ve had, but that’s only a fraction of the total cost. The total cost is much more than the hijackings only.”
As an unintended consequence, hijacking provides business for some entrepreneurs. In South Africa there is a boom in vehicle tracking companies and driving safety schools.
DataDot Technology is one of the companies making money. It installs up to 10,000 microdots on your car, each with a unique code. Removing them from a stolen vehicle is virtually impossible.
“We attack the business side of organized crime. The vehicles can’t have their identity changed,” says Derek Menday, the Sales Director at DataDot Technology.
The company claims it has a 52% recovery rate for stolen cars.
Companies such as Altech Netstar and Cartrack provide a range of products and services from entry level to advanced tracking. Installing them can cost up to five times more than the microdots, in addition to the monthly subscription fees.
As with most products, prices are determined by effectiveness. Though it is more expensive, Cartrack has a recovery rate of 94%.
There is also business in preventing these crimes from happening.
Your Driving School is a business in Johannesburg that runs anti-hijacking courses. The owner, Franci Human, and instructor, Nicky Peacock, are both hijacking victims. To Peacock’s disappointment, the majority of her clients are companies, rather than individuals.
“People always think it won’t happen to them,” says Peacock.
But the figures suggest it could happen to you in the next year.