As the festive season approaches, dozens of Pretoria shopping malls have raised security levels after having been ranked among the most risky in the country this week when it comes to potentially violent attacks.
According to the Hot Spot report, all shops on the list must increase security, ensure all security measures like CCTV cameras are working, liaise with police, fingerprint all security and car guards, report any suspicious vehicles or people, ensure security personnel are deployed in strategic positions, and ensure security and management personnel have either panic buttons or communication devices.
This has been revealed in documents leaked to the Pretoria News by sources within the Shopping Centre Security Initiative (SCSI), which shows that a third of shopping centres on the initiative's hot spot watch list are in Pretoria
The watch list shows that 29 of the 90 centres on the national list that are cause for concern are in Pretoria, with centres in the Montana area, being particularly vulnerable to potential attacks from cash heist gangs.
The documents, entitled the Hot Spot Report, September 12, 2008 and Trend Report on Violent Crime at Shopping Centres, August 2008, were compiled by the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa, South African Banking Risk Intelligence Centre, SA Property Owners Association, South African Council of Shopping Centres and Business Against Crime (BAC).
The reports show which centres are under potential threat from robbers and provide shopping centre owners with an overview of violent crimes such as robberies.
According to the Trend report, 65 violent crimes, in which a person was critically injured, were reported at malls across South Africa in August.
Thirty-two of the attacks occurred in Gauteng, which is the worst province, followed by 14 in the Western Cape and seven in KwaZulu-Natal.
The documents come after police released crime statistics in July, which showed that business robberies increased by 3 173 from 6 689 in the 2006/7 financial year to 9 862 in the 2007/8 financial year.
SCSI project manager, Jenny Irish-Qhobosheane, confirmed Pretoria was a bad area for attacks at shopping centres.
"We are especially concerned about Pretoria as there has been an increase in the number of incidents in the past year," she said.
The August Trend report shows that of the 65 attacks at South Africa's shopping centres, 44 were armed robberies, 12 ATM attacks and five cash-in-transit heists.
High risk times for armed robberies were between 9 and 11am and 6pm and 7pm, while ATM attacks usually take place between 5 and 12am.
Weapons used include AK-47s, shotguns, handguns, knives, explosives and angle grinders, with criminals often resorting to violence, especially at service stations which often fall victim to repeat attacks.
The report states that retail businesses and banks were the worst affected, followed by restaurants, with most of these crimes occurring at neighbourhood shopping centres, followed by community shopping mall centres.
The average response time by police is between 10 and 20 minutes, while private security companies respond between 10 and 15 minutes.
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