Over 200 members of the Motor Transport Workers Union (MTWU) of the cash-in-transit industry delivered a memorandum to the Western Cape provincial legislature on Tuesday.
The MTWU, along with the Federation of Unions of South Africa, said they demand “effective and vital police intelligence on behalf of their members working at various cash-in-transit companies who find themselves in the line of fire on a daily basis”.
The unions demand “an immediate stop to the brutal slaughter of their security officers and state
regulation of firearms, that security officers be given
powerful weapons to
protect themselves”.
They also demand a basic salary increase from R11 500 to R20 000 per month.
Premier Helen Zille said: “The number of cash-in-transit heists has grown alarmingly, and your lives and lives of the innocent bystanders are genuinely at risk every day.
“And as you rightly note in your memorandum, if you can’t do your job, millions of people can’t get their social grant for example. So the knock-on effect on the risk of that you face affects the most vulnerable people in our society.”
Zille added: “We only have oversight powers, we have no operational control over the SAPS at all. But what I certainly will do, is take your demands to where the operational control is and we will start an oversight program to look at what is happening in response to your demands,” she said.