Having watched this video many times on all kinds of platforms over the past week or so and read hundreds of comments, some positive, some funny and some negative, we are motivated to note down some general observations and thoughts:

The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, had it right when he said, “Change is the only constant.” And most new year messages contained wording to the effect that, “2021 can only be better, let’s just forget 2020.” I think Heraclitus would’ve been amazed if he were able to look around today. Here’s a small sample of today’s headlines from the world of news, economics and of course, security:

As South Africa enters Level 2 of our COVID-19 lockdown, following President Ramaphosa’s Sunday evening announcement to the nation, we look back and answer some of the questions that we were almost too frightened to ask in Level 5, but that we knew were all too predictable.

With a multitude of Fortune 500 companies having large-scale operations in South Africa and Africa, and a substantial number of expatriate personnel working for these companies across the African continent; the security departments of many of these companies have no doubt been sent into a bit of a tail-spin since the majority of the world enacted strict travel restrictions in place to curb the rampant spread of COVID-19.

One of the aspects of the decision by President Ramaphosa to lockdown South Africa that has serious security implications for businesses around the country is the fact that their physical premises will be completely unoccupied for the 21-day duration. This obviously excludes those businesses which are deemed to be “essential service providers”.

It’s widely accepted that almost every resident of South Africa has fallen victim to some form or degree of crime at least once in their lifetime. Some crimes are reported, and some simply ignored, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was crime.