Tale guide

ADDRESS TO THE ANNUAL ROTARY DISTRICT 9370 CONFERENCE

Introduction

I was privileged to be invited to give a talk to the 2023 Rotary International District 9370 Conference held in Howick, KZN on the 5^th and 6^th May. As some of you know, once I get going, it’s a mission to stop me, so what follows is the original and entire talk from which I was able to share some extracts to a very warm and positive audience on the day.

I might add that I was given a rather grand and flattering introduction by my Rotarian elder brother, Nick Phillips, which certainly helped calm the nerves and set the scene for what turned out to be an easy and very pleasant exchange of thoughts and ideas.

‘Use the difficulty’

Michel Caine tells of a time when he was just starting out in theatre. He was in a rehearsal and about to come on stage when he found his way blocked by a chair. Slightly confused, he looked to the director for guidance.

“Use the difficulty,” said the director.

“What do you mean?” replied Michael, still puzzled.

“If you are in a comedy,” replied the director, “fall over it. If you are in a drama, pick it up and throw it. Either way, use the difficulty.”

“If you can use it a quarter of one percent to your advantage. you're ahead,” Michael stressed. “You didn't let it

get you down, you know.” “Use the difficulty!”

I thought this is a useful piece of advice for us South African’s particularly given the enormity of the difficulties we are having to face every day.

If I’ve learnt anything over the past couple of years during which time we packed up and headed back to the old country, realized that the old country was a figment of our imagination, and came straight back, is, don’t be sucked into the daily newspapers and broadcasts and calamity social media, fake or otherwise news.

But it was really only upon our return a year ago that the penny dropped. I realized that there are so many South Africans using the difficulty by making a plan and taking back that for which they have a direct interest in. There’s a whole lot of good stuff going on.

Wherever you go on the planet, South Africans stand out in the world by their sense of humour, their patience and most of all their innate ability to make a plan.

With all of the wonderful modern advances one finds in the British Isles, over the years, the people have allowed themselves to be shackled by rules, regulations and process to the extent, for the most part, that they’ve seem to have lost the ability to improvise. Even the phrase “make a plan”, is a source of puzzlement. In South Africa, in contrast, it is the very core of our being.   

One learned colleague of mine makes the point that we live in a two-tiered economy. On the one side the Government is forging ahead often short on competence and long on corruption, and on the other, the commercial forces of supply and demand are investing, building, employing and keeping the country ticking over for a better tomorrow.

People are making a plan to find ways to compensate the lack of delivery on almost every front.

Ann of Africa and the bushman

As we observed all the goings on, a big caravan being pulled by an equally large 4x4 swung in onto the grass verge in front of us. A topless, bronzed 40 something fellow jumped out from the cab and swaggered over the logs, removed the barrier and proceeded to drive his rig onto the soft green lawns.

I wandered over for an opportunity that was begging to be taken advantage of and as I approached the chap, he lifted a can of beer to his mouth, took an exaggerated swig and announced “Girre man, I’m buggered. I have jus driven for seventeen hours all offroad!”

The declaration is clearly intended to impress. This was one of my bushmen. ‘What a boytjie,’ I thought with a wry smile.

With a look of admiration tinged with a little feigned innocence across my face, I responded with “that’s tough, eh?” I paused, before continuing with “although, I would have made use of the tarred roads myself?”.

The bushman knows it all!

I know a baboon when I see one

While in the company of the uninitiated, I love to be able come into my own as I sprout forth my immense knowledge on the way of the bush. It is an instant attention grabber unless of course there is a real know-all in the crowd.

So, when I met and married my young and attractive Yorkshire lass who had never set foot in a game reserve, I was in seventh heaven.

So, to Berg-en-Dal in the southern Kruger Park we drove, in my company car.

On our second morning in the park, I had to drive out to Malelaan to have a fault on my car attended to.

I made my sweetheart comfortable with a book on a deckchair that we placed under a tree in the front of the caravan. “You will be safe here. The camp is protected by a heavy duty electric fence that keeps the animals away," I assured her.

During the course of the morning, while she was absorbed by her book, a troupe of baboons entered the camp and took up position in a half-moon circle in front of her. They sat on their haunches equally spaced apart staring at the lady in front of them. After a while a light rustle drew her attention away from the book and she lifted her eyes only to see the danger before her. Very slowly, she dropped her hand to her cell phone, took it quietly to her ear and phoned the bushman.

I answered my phone in Malelaan, “Hello my dear. What’s up?”

“I am surrounded by a troupe of baboons” she whispered, nervously, not wanting to make a noise.

I chuckled. “No, my dear,” said the bushman, a tad condescendingly, “they can’t be baboons inside the fence. They are probably only vervet monkeys. Nothing to worry yourself about.”

The outburst forthcoming from the young lady could be heard in Mozambique. “I know a bloody*(sic) baboon when I see one!” she shouted directly into my ear. Even the chap across the road in Malelaan heard her.

The Baboons got the fright of their lives and instantly jumped up and ran away out of sight.

And so began a series of stories we entitled Ann of Africa and the bushman which ultimately led to my blog at

www.talesofthebushman.co.uk.

MY CAREER AND CRIME

I spent my entire career in law enforcement and private security of one segment or another and by 1989 I found myself heading up operations of the then Fidelity Guards Cash in Transit division. During the course of the following 14 odd years, I became intimately exposed to violent criminal attacks on our industry, which became increasingly worse as the years passed.

In the interests of providing context, the use of cash remains a key component of the South African economy representing over 58% of GDP and the demand for cash continues to rise. Cash in circulation tops R200 Billion.

The major armoured car companies distribute the cash from the SARB to the commercial banks and on to the ATMS across the land, where it becomes available to the consumer. Once the cash has passed through the retail, wholesale and service economy the same armoured car service providers collect the incoming deposits and deliver them to the banks and cash centers to reconcile, count, sort and discriminate.

Organised crime

Well-armed and dangerous gangs operating often with military know-how and armaments began to appear in the early 90’s. The ability of the Police to address the situation simultaneously and steadily deteriorated and the attacks climbed year on year until they hit a staggering average of over two a day.

Newspapers and television often published horrific pictures of cash vehicles blown to pieces on the highways and byways of the land. Many young brave men and women died along the way.

Representations to parliamentary committees and other such authorities were plentiful but to no avail. The gangs kept coming and millions upon millions of rands disappeared to who knows whom and where.

CITASA

Eventually the Cash in Transit companies came to the realization that very little was going to change unless they took matters into their own hands. The time had come to make a plan! The Cash in Transit Association came into being.

The years have passed, and the CIT companies and the banks continue to invest millions of Rands a year into their combined efforts to tackle armed robbery. Amongst many strategic actions, the industry supports a highly successful crime intelligence capability; it deploys armed, unmarked scouts and support units and operates helicopter surveillance from the skies and it continues its research into new defense technologies.

Their efforts paid off and continue to do so to this day. It wasn’t long before the industry was able to take hands with the police and together, they are making a difference.

THE START OF CASH CONNECT

It was around 2004 that I decided to leave Fidelity as they unbundled the group and the cash services company was sold to G4S.

By this time, we began to see how, now faced with an ever-increasing level of resistance from the Cash in Transit companies and commercial banks, the gangs began to target retailers and wholesalers as well as the government service outlets.

This created an opportunity to find a solution to the retail sector’s difficulty. We introduced an intelligent cash accepting safe that was extremely difficult to open and that was capable of reading and discriminating bank notes as they were fed into the machine and by transmitting the value to a central server, we were eventually able to offer to take the risk of loss away from the retailer and provide him with immediate value.

And so, Cash Connect was born. It was a tough long hall overcoming market reluctance and uncertainty and the many practical issues that such a revolutionary and untested concept would present. 

But to cut a long story short, by the end of 2021, the Connect Group had grown into a leading Fintech business processing over R10 Billion a month across its national retail cash operations having by then branched out into Business-to-Business financing as well as virtual lending and value-added services with a significant penetration of the informal sector.

MAKING A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE

I am particularly proud of the way we made a positive difference to young men and women in South Africa's emerging small and medium businesses, not to mention our own staff and their families, by creating many hundreds of sustainable jobs and providing a practical platform for aspirant go getters to learn and grow and build a good life for themselves.

SOUTH COAST HOME INVASIONS

Down on the South coast of KZN, where we settled during those years, residential crime was also on the increase, as it was across South Africa. In our neck of the woods, we had an advantage of a forward-thinking commanding officer of the greater Margate precinct. But notwithstanding their best efforts, limited staffing and a restricted budget made effective policing increasingly difficult, and our Ramsgate community was becoming unsettled and concerned.

Despite the small group of negative naysayers, the larger community chose to make its own plan.

In association with the local police and armed response companies, the community formed a Community Policing Forum and over the ensuing years built an effective capacity to deter, detect and defend themselves against residential crime. A plan was executed and became a huge success.

Today the Community Policing Forum's deploy hundreds of motion activated cameras around their neighbourhoods. The Ramsgate CPF says they process approximately 100, 000 images a month. Every image is checked and where necessary one of the participating patrols whether CPF or Security companies, are despatched for further investigation. Cameras are monitored live 24/7 and are frequently moved around to maintain the element of surprise.

Today the positive results of the community policing initiative which brought house invasions down to below single figures per year, were adopted by neighbouring communities and slowly but surely the crime prevention net spread along the coast from Port Edward to Port Shepstone.

Today the Southcoast of KZN is considered one of the safest regions in South Africa. Once again community after community came together. They stopped demanding and complaining about service delivery. They put their hands in their pockets to make individually nominal but collectively meaningful and sustainable financial support and made a comprehensive and effective plan that continues to improve the safety and security of the everyone who lives, works or plays there.

SOUTH COAST IS THE PLACE TO GO

The South Coast in general and Margate in particular were once iconic holiday destinations for thousands of South Africans from the hinterland. Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the north. The community was a vibrant one enjoying the peace and quiet during school terms while making hay throughout the holidays.

Like so many towns around our country, the deterioration in municipal services has taken its toll.

Throughout this time the community complained to the authorities, marched to the mayors’ offices, sought exposure to their plight on national television, all with little meaningful result.

In early 2020 a group of local businessmen decided that enough was enough and formed a voluntary organisation called Tidy Towns Shelly to Margate.

                                                           “Together we can do so much more” became the slogan.

In the ensuing years, Tidy Towns took hands with the municipalities. South Coast business and its farming community sent plumbers, brick layers, handymen, trucks, graders, and front-end dumpsters to replace and repair every public facility down the coast.

Teams of volunteers from local schools joined hands and brought their own spark of plan making to the party. Between them and the hundreds of residents who heeded the call to arms, they cleared the beaches and the parklands that surround them of garbage, plastics, glass and bottles, overgrown bush and the rest. Wild bushlands were cleaned up, alien plants removed, grasslands returned to lawned picnic sites and the verges along the roads were trimmed while in some places new trees were planted. Even the Shelly Beach Ski boat club site got a complete facelift while road surfaces were given a fresh coat of paint.

The enthusiasm and success of the Tidy Towns Shelly Beach to Margate became so infectious that similar initiatives started up along the coast to Pennington and Scottburgh and beyond.

Today the south coast beaches from Marina beach in the south to Shelly beach in the north have been returned to their former glory by a community who simply decided to make a plan and December 2022 recorded the biggest influx of holiday makers they had recorded in ten years.

THAT’S THE SPIRIT

That’s the spirit of South Africa. Despite the state of the nation in all of its aspects, the communities are coming alive and taking back their towns.

People are realizing that the perpetual bombardment of negativity they we are exposed to across public and social media platforms perpetuates misery and destroys hope and does absolutely nothing to improve their lives. Town after town, village after village, people are standing up to take on the responsibilities of fixing the broken, helping the poor and sickly, and creating a safer and more enjoyable life than they have had to endure for far too long.

It is this indomitable can-do attitude that makes me proud to be South African. The 60, 000 multiracial crowd singing the national anthem at full throttle at a Springbok test match in Mpumalanga, makes me proud to be a South African. The individual government official who bends over backwards to be of help makes me proud to be South African.

The smiles and genuine empathy of up-and-coming nurses and doctors in our hospitals, burns a warm fire in my chest.

Good will overcome evil in the end, and our contribution and determination will add value to the greater cause.

                                                                             Together we can do so much more!  

Richard Phillips, 6^th May 2023, Howick