THE recent report about crime at Paarl Mall highlights the fact that security measures at Paarl Mall are vastly inadequate.
There has been a string of robberies since the Mall opened and this is increasing at an alarming rate.
The big concern is that it may only be a matter of time before Paarl Mall is targeted by military style armed robbers, as is happening all over the country.
Investigations into this phenomenon point to possible collusion between informal attendants and criminals.
The fact that car thieves can steal a car from the parking area without being recorded on the CCTV system, must send a clear signal to potential robbers that this Mall is a “soft target’’.
I trust that Paarl Mall accepts the responsibility they have towards shoppers and visitors.
I believe that the public deserves an explanation from the Paarl Mall management as to what procedures they are implementing to improve this alarming situation.
Van Hunk
The manager of Paarl Mall, Lise de Boer, responds: Our security company is not only up to the job of protecting the centre and its customers, they have an actual proven track record in this regard.
The only way to determine the effectiveness of any security measure is to look at the incident reports and ours clearly indicate that we are on the right track.
I unfortunately have to disagree with Van Hunk as we have actual case studies which have proven that at the centres where we utilise car guards, the car theft figures are in actual fact far lower than at centres without them.
Our car guards, who all fall under Fidelity Security Services, are all Grade E security officers who are Psira registered and thoroughly screened with criminal checks carried out on all of them before they are allowed on our site.
As with any company there might be problem staff, however we are very confident in the integrity of our car guards. A testimony to this is the number of compliments we receive from the public with regards to these guards.
If we were to remove our car guards, there would be a guaranteed spike in crime at the centre and the only way to avoid this would be to install a pay on foot system whereby the entire parking lot would be managed by booms and our customers would no longer enjoy the benefits of free parking.
I think it is important that customers understand that we own several shopping centres across the country and our security service providers manage literally hundreds of sites.
At a senior level we continually liaise with the industry players as well as the police with regards to the latest trends and preventative measures in this regard.
We all know that shopping centres have become perceived soft targets for criminals and the fact that we have been able to prevent serious crimes and in fact many less serious crimes to date, is testimony to the dedication and effectiveness of our security guards and car guards.