SOUTH AFRICA COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM SYSTEMS INTEGRATOR Pretoria News: How we can beat crime: "How we can beat crime

March 22, 2007 Edition 1

Dear Mr President,

Communications Specialists (Pty) Ltd is a systems integrator for satellite communications. The company is located in Highveld Technopark in Centurion.

At about 9pm on Friday March 9, armed robbers burgled our facilities for the fifth time in two and a half months. As a taxpaying company in South Africa we believe that our government should protect companies and citizens from these criminal elements. We are not receiving that protection, which should be the basic right of any citizen of South Africa.

The most recent wave of burglaries started on December 22, while we had one guard on duty. After that our facility was burgled several more times.

During this time we increased the guard level from one to two guards, but both were overpowered by six robbers, of which three were armed.

The robbers even tried to break into the front door of the office at about noon -in broad daylight - while a visitor from overseas was working in the building. We called the Lyttelton police station and were told that they did not know when they would be able to come to our rescue. They never showed up.

On March 9, 10 armed robbers overpowered the four guards on duty, tied them up and stole 10 computers. Because of the high crime rate, we stand to lose our tenant - a large respected international company.

The criminal element can and will match any number of guards that any company can post at its facilities. South Africa is in a state of emergency in terms of crime.

We are not aware of one staff member who has not been a victim of a violent crime or who knows someone who has been a victim of violent crime.