With the second anniversary of the deadly July 2021 riots just days away, 97% of the 17 500 claims that arose from the looting and destruction of property during the 10 days of unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng have been settled.
Speaking to SABC News at the launch of The Unrest, a 40-minute documentary focusing on the tragedy and how it unfolded, Mpumi Tyikwe, the chief executive of the South African Special Risk Insurance Association (Sasria), said the non-life insurer to date has paid out more than R32 billion in claims. Of the claims still outstanding, four were in dispute.
What has been described as the largest killings in the country’s democratic history, the riots, which began on Friday, 9 July 2021, in Mooi River KZN, resulted in the death of more than 350 people. Images and videos of torched trucks and burnt-down shopping centres would continue to rule the airwaves and social media until Monday, 19 July, when the unrest finally abated.
Bewailing the loss of lives and livelihoods, Tyikwe told SABC News that the cost to the economy had been more than R60bn.
“This is the sad consequence when protests are accompanied by violence. We are in a democracy; we should be in a position to protest but protest more peacefully. And the other impact it has had, especially here in KZN, more than 30 000 jobs were lost.”
Intelligence structures
Amid the chaos in July 2021, IOL reported that the State Security Agency had received intelligence beforehand that some of its former senior members, who were supporters of former president Jacob Zuma, had been key in orchestrating the unrest.
In a scathing report released in February 2022, a panel of experts, appointed to probe the reasons behind the unrest, described the response by the police and intelligence services to the unfolding events as “inadequate and insufficient”.
At the time, News24 reported that the panel found there had been a significant intelligence failure to anticipate, prevent or disrupt the planned and orchestrated violence. It has since been claimed that intelligence structures did have knowledge of the pending riots but failed to act on it.
In an interview with Michelle Craig of Newzroom Afrika, Muzi Dladla, the executive manager: stakeholder management at Sasria, confirmed they had access to the same intelligence.
“And that is exactly what we cover in the documentary. So, we just take a deep dive, blow-by-blow, day-by-day, of the events prior to the event happening. We bring on board as well some of the industry experts, some of the biggest property owners, retailers and everybody that were affected.”
Sasria is the only non-life insurance company that provides cover for damage caused by special risks, such as politically motivated malicious acts, riots, strikes, terrorism, and public disorders.
“Sasria exists to ensure that we make good on all of those losses should there be a disaster of such a nature,” Dladla said.
Lessons learned
One of the biggest lessons learned from the July 2021 riots, he said, was the need for co-ordination between the various levels of defence – be it public or private.
In the Newzroom Afrika interview, Dladla was frank about the fact that when Sasria did their scenario planning two years ago, they did not take into consideration vulnerabilities in respect of what could go wrong and what could break down in terms of mitigation.
“Like the police, how we integrate to the communities, how the communities themselves can get involved, as well as the army. That integrated approach, that was the biggest lesson for us. That we need to look at in detail going forward.”
He added they had not anticipated that, at a certain point, these defences could break down. If collaboration had been in place, he said, much of the carnage could have been avoided.
“So, we are talking about ensuring that there is enough intelligence on the ground, first of all, so that we know up front and, secondly, that we know how to disperse that type of information with the security clusters, with the police, with our own other mechanisms that we have in place, as well as the communities themselves and individuals.”
He said what had been lacking was the glue to hold these public/private partnerships together, adding this was what Sasria was now doing.
Capturing the chaos
The documentary premiered in KwaMashu on 4 July. The township, 12 kilometres north of Durban, was one of the areas hardest hit by the riots.
Dladla said the documentary included a case study of one of the township’s malls, Bridge City Shopping Centre. The damage sustained to the mall during the riots necessitated the full closure and internal reconstruction of the premises.
The centre, owned by the Futuregrowth Community Property Fund (Comprop), officially reopened on 6 April this year.
During the opening ceremony, Smital Rambhai, portfolio manager of Comprop, said the closure had resulted in the loss of about 1 563 jobs. It has been estimated that these job losses alone would have affected at least 10 000 lives in the communities of Phoenix, Inanda, Ntuzuma, and KwaMashu, who are supported by the income earned by staff working at the centre.
Dodging a bullet
As hundreds of thousands of KZN and Gauteng residents struggled to keep their heads above water in the aftermath, so did Sasria.
In the documentary, Cedric Masondo, the former managing director of Sasria, said that, initially, they thought these were “just ordinary riots”, no different from those experienced in previous years. Before 2021, he said, Sasria used to handle an average of 3 000 claims a year.
“We then realised we are now talking in excess of R20bn in claims, and our balance sheet, we realised we could not pay all those claims,” Masondo said.
In May 2022, Moonstone reported that the claims generated by the previous year’s unrest had wiped out Sasria’s cumulative retained earnings of more than R8bn.
In a briefing to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Appropriations, Tyikwe said Sasria had been designed to handle events up to about R17bn. He said they planned to use a cash injection of R22bn from National Treasury to pay out remaining claims and meet the insurer’s solvency requirements. This week, Tyikwe said he was “really happy” to report that Sasria was in a better state than it was before the July 2021 riots.
“We are sitting with reserves in excess of R10.5bn,” he said.
Tyikwe said the past two years have seen Sasria becoming more agile and responsive, with more claims settled, and the organisation cementing its reputation as a reliable insurance provider.
In the documentary, potential alternative strategies that could have reduced the disaster’s magnitude are explored. It also highlights the implications for businesses, the economy, and communities at large, delving into the societal and economic consequences of the riots.
The Unrest also premiered at Ster-Kinekor in Sandton City on 6 July.
Sasria’s marketing manager, Andiswa Madolo, told Moonstone that although there were no plans to show the documentary at other cinemas, Sasria hoped it would be picked up by one of the local broadcasters.
A Sasria media statement said the documentary will be made available on mainstream public platforms.
You can download a short clip of the documentary at https://we.tl/t-zu8qICeA0a
