The South African Special Risk Insurance Association (SASRIA) has so far paid more than R6-billion of claims following the violence and looting that took place in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in July.
It says it has received about 13 000 claims from businesses. Over 300 people died while property and goods were vandalised during the riots in the two provinces.
SASRIA’s Cedric Masondo says there are also people taking chances by lodging fraudulent claims.
“We did expect that there would be a number of claims throughout the country for whatever the reason. What we didn’t expect was the magnitude. Of-course you make assumptions. You assume that if there are riots there would be police in time and will be able to control the crowds so we have to change those assumptions. I think we have learnt we can’t rely on those assumptions.”
Black businesses excluded in rebuilding work related to unrest: Council
In August, the Black Business Council accused government of excluding black businesses in the rebuilding work related to the unrest.
The council says the state insurer SASRIA is only appointing white suppliers for the reconstruction work linked to the unrest.
The Black Business Council slammed the alleged claims by SASRIA and other private insurers that they can’t find black supplies for the rebuilding work linked to the unrest.
SASRIA said it had allocated R700-million for private insurers to pay out claims under one-million-rand.
Gregory Mofokeng of the Black Business Council said, “One of the issues that we’re already witnessing is that the beneficiaries of all this work that must be done now is the white owned businesses to the exclusion of black businesses. Let me make an example, if you look at what is now happening with SASRIA, and we had an engagement with SASRIA a week ago, the loss assessors that are now going to ascertain the loss are mainly white companies. The people that are being called to fix the damage that was caused are also white companies.”
Mofokeng said the council is worried about corruption in relation to the money set aside by the Unemployment Insurance Fund to support workers working in businesses that were affected by the unrest.
“Once this kind of an arrangement was put in place, we had people with corrupt intentions actually hijacking the system. We were happy that there were actually some arrests as a result of the corruption that happened under TERS and we are hoping that our systems this time around are fortified so that we do not have these opportunistic elements coming through.”
Who should be held accountable for recent unrest in SA?
