The South African bus chief taking a stand against ‘mafia’ demands

Nine years ago, taxi operators carrying passengers on the same routes as sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest bus company, Intercape, demanded it increase prices or pay them a “levy”.

Company owner Johann Ferreira refused. But the confrontation began an escalating battle with organised criminals in which buses run by the South African group were stoned or shot at almost 200 times. In April 2022 the conflict culminated in tragedy: bus driver Bongikhaya Machana, 35, was shot dead in the company’s depot. 

At that point Ferreira decided that if no one else would take a stand against the extortion that plagues businesses across South Africa, then he would.

Warning that Intercape’s plight was part of a crisis of criminality threatening the entire economy, he took to the courts, where he has so far won five cases focused on forcing the authorities to act.

“This happened in broad daylight outside my office,” said Ferreira. “I’ve laid charges in every one of these cases, but there’s been no justice for Bongikhaya’s family. I can’t drop this now — I owe it to them.”

Ferreira, whose 53-year-old business was founded by his father, added: “It’s the same pattern you see everywhere: these mafias come in and demand protection money or bribes, and if you don’t provide they start shooting. The large companies . . . are scared and not standing up to it.”

The crisis is mirrored across South African industry, in sectors from transport and waste collection to construction and mining. Police minister Senzo Mchunu told MPs this week that South Africa faced a “wave of extortion and other related crimes”, describing the offenders as “murderous parasites”.

Stephen Bullock, head of sustainable impact at the world’s largest platinum miner Anglo American Platinum, told Africa’s largest mining conference this year that the company frequently ran up against gangs demanding a cut of contracts. If the mines resisted, the criminals threatened violence and sabotaged their road and rail links.

The extortion in an industry that accounts for 6.2 per cent of the country’s GDP resulted in “massive financial losses”, said the Minerals Council South Africa, which represents the largest miner. 

The racketeering wave is so intense that Global Initiative, a Geneva-based NGO, ranks South Africa the seventh worst of 193 countries in its 2023 organised crime index. 

“This has now involved us, the [bus] passengers,” said Sabelo Kwinana, who was shot last year when the bus on which he was travelling was attacked by gunmen suspected of working for rivals trying to drive Intercape out of business. 

“I used to be the best soccer player in my team, but I’ve been unable to play since I was shot in the leg,” added Kwinana, who feared losing his job as a prison guard because of his impairment. “I always thought I’d be safe on the buses . . . This has made my life worse.”

In his July state of the nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa said specialised police units would be set up to tackle the “mafias”.

He was speaking two months after the African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority in May’s elections for the first time since the end of apartheid three decades ago. The loss was widely blamed on voters losing patience with the ANC’s broken promises, including its pledge to curb crime.

Last year, Ramaphosa described the country as “under siege” from criminals and vowed the government would crack down, while opposition parties campaigned heavily on police “indifference” to criminal syndicates that operated with seeming impunity.

The centrist Democratic Alliance, one of the ANC’s coalition partners in the new government, estimates that organised crime costs the country R155bn ($8.7bn) a year. 

“Lawlessness must not be tolerated,” said the DA’s Dean Macpherson, public works and infrastructure minister, this summer. “We must seize the moment to end violence, intimidation and extortion.”

In one of Intercape’s successful court cases, high court judge John Smith in September 2022 ordered the police to devise a comprehensive “action plan” to protect the buses, but the force dragged its feet.

“It boggles the mind why it is so difficult for a law enforcement agency to appreciate that when armed assailants take pot shots at moving buses, deleterious consequences inevitably ensue,” the judge said in a separate judgment in the case a year later.

Smith in July rejected a police and local government appeal against the order. This underscored a finding in March, where the court found Intercape and other companies were victims of “organised crime”, which the police are constitutionally obliged to investigate.

Lawyers for the police had previously argued the force could not “cater for the private security needs of all” and that to do what Intercape asked would be to provide it with “preferential” policing.

“This ends their fight [against protecting] South Africa’s citizens from criminals,” said Ferreira, whose company moves 4mn passengers a year across South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique. “The government has fought this tooth and nail, costing the taxpayer millions of rand.”

Intercape’s lawyer Jac Marais added: “In many industries, criminality is woven into the way business is done. This ruling puts the head of the police on notice that they must address it.” 

Ferreira said the attacks had cost Intercape R75mn in lost income, damage and legal costs.

But he is hopeful the new government will finally begin to tackle a situation he says threatens every industry. 

“The only thing that makes [my situation] different is that I’m standing up and saying I have a responsibility to fight this,” he said. “We can’t allow ourselves to be run out of business just because our police are too weak to do their job.”