ChristineH

Yes, I also think that it is abnormal! But I do believe that you can have a good experience living in the area. And for South Africans living around the area their lives are 'normal' and they will fiercely protect their lifestyles. And they genuinely love living there. Thank goodness that we are all different!

Dizer27

Dee

I am also relocating from Aberdeen to Cape Town at the end of March with my husband. We should maybe get together in Aberdeen before I leave to discuss our findings or research some things together. I have a one son - he is 2 at the moment, so schooling is not such an issue for us just now.

Also, we have decided to keep our house here and lease it out, and we have arranged to lease a house out in Cape Town.

We are also moving as my husband is being relocated with his company. Let me know, if you send a private message then we can maybe get something arranged.

MartynK

I was born/grew up in the UK, went to Hong Kong for a few years and then moved to SA (my mother in South African). I've lived in Joburg for nearly 30 years now, and work in Security Risk Management, so I'm pretty close to the crime reality.

Moving to SA is your your decision. No one else can make this choice for you, we can only try to give you a sense of what to expect. It is a beautiful country with a great climate, most/many of the people are wonderful and it has the potential to be one of the best places in the world to live, but there is a dark and ugly side too. You need to be aware of this.

SA has one of the highest crime rates in the world, and this is exacerbated by the extraordinary levels of violence associated with crimes against the person. You can avoid street crime to some extent, but domestic burglary has been substantially overtaken by robbery at residential premises, because the perpetrators want the family to be at home (open the safe/gunsafe, hand over the car keys and please ask the women/your female children to "cooperate"). Hijacking is an equally serious threat, and don't break down in the wrong place. These are not exaggerations. You can get the official statistics on the internet, but these are probably under-reported.

We do a lot of business with multinational/overseas companies asking for pre-deployment security briefings for their expats, in country security awareness programmes, instant sitreps on new crime developements and residential security audits and general security advice.

I take is you are los aware of the power crisis? This will take 5 - 8 years to resolve and will have a colossal impact on the country, apart raising the security threat level.

I don't want to leave SA, but I'm having second thoughts.

Redlippie

Expanding on what Marty said.

In South Africa, you have to have security gates, alarms, etc....and the b**st**ds still get around that often enough. If you are attacked in your home, which is a very real possibility, you can guarantee that 90 percent of the time, you will be raped and tortured, if not killed. Not scare mongering, but fact.

With the fact that there is an electricity crisis in S.A., (and Marty, Tegs and I know one of Eskoms former top people in planning and he says that it will take 20 years to get to the same production level as 1995), you will be left without security alarms, security gates won't work, etc..etc.......the murdering crims are having a field day with the loss of power.

Just be very aware at what you are getting into. S.A. is not Table Mountain and the V and A Waterfront.

SeaninOzalready

very true what has been said here. I am currently reading a book called 'Where we have hope- a memoir of Zimbabwe'. Great read and brings back my childhood in Zim. Andrew Meldrum the American author captures the rise and fall of Zim as a economic success very well- recommend to all..

Anyway he says that when he moved to Zim, alot of the whites still there said that they have S&S in Africa (Sun and servants) and quite frankly they would rather be murdered in their beds than have to make them themselves everyday. This is still very much the case. People won't leave, because despite having all the dangers, you can still afford a maid and a gardener and even those with not much money in the UK, suddenly find they are able to live like kings and not lift a finger again- goes on in Hong Kong and China with the expats there to.

Whereas SA is not Nigeria or Rwanda (Yet!)- had an uncle working there and could not even drive down the road without thousdands of kids jumping on the car begging for food. Had to go everywhere with armed guards and could not get out of the 'compound' after 6pm at all. You still have to be very very careful- forget about going wondering around in the city centre (especially at night) and invest in the best security that you can afford is my advice. Also learn to cope with guns being part of daily life and be prepared to kill should you have to to save the lives of your loved ones. Sad but oh so true!

Sarah Surfer

wow - I have been reading all the comments on this thread and other similar ones and I am truly having second thoughts. My org is opening an office in CT in 08 and I have been considering a move with my OH. I am Australian and have visited SA around 4 years ago and fell in love with the country. It sounds significantly worse now. So for those of you who have moved back or are still there, or expats there - can I ask what the good points are? If I don't go out at night, be careful where I drive, live in a gated community, watch my back 247, have a dog/gun/barbed wire fence...then will I be ok?! I am guessing I can't walk to the surf on my own, go for a cycle in the day? So what is the upside, or is it all bad news? Is CT safer than say Pretoria? What do you like about living there? I don't want to miss out on a great cultural experience because of fear or am I being naive? Having said that I don't want my husband or I to be murdered or raped. Maybe South America is safer!

Tegwyn

I think your last sentence probably answered your own question. Not only is security going to be injected into every decision you make, you will also have the challenge of dealing with a dwindling supply of electricity. Cape Town was pretty much shut down a few weeks ago due to Eskom's glorious mess at maintaining infrastructure. It appears it may well happen again too. However, should you decide to go, buy your generator now and bring it in with you because they are rather pricey at the moment. At least you will have power when everyone else fumbles around in the dark. Lastly, start getting in the habit of drinking imported bottled water, they are having some issues with maintaining the cleanliness of their water supply.

MartynK

OK. Forget about "living like a king" on a modest income. SA has become quite expensive, tax is a burden and none of your personal security costs are deductible. OTOH expat packages can be very generous. Forget about "living by the gun" too. It's difficult, time consuming and expensive to obtain a license for a personal weapon. Not impossible, but the delay is around 12 - 18months and most applications are declined because of "insufficient motivation". By most, I mean + 90%, and you will have incurred the training/competency certificate costs and the deposit on the weapon etc before you start. The whole process has to be repeated at each renewal, with no guarantees.

Good security (home, vehicle and personal) is essential and pricey. You can take the chance, and you might get away with, but it is foolish. You will also have to develop a sense of situational awareness and how to respond to a potential threat.

Cape Town is beautiful, and has a cool lifestyle. Some people maintain that it is "safer" than Johannesburg but this is relative. Cape Town does have a serious crime problem.

I'm not trying to discourage you, or anyone else. We all have to make our own decisions, but you should know the facts and there are a lot more people trying to emigrate than immigrate!

Tegwyn

Just an FYI for Sarah. Any company coming into SA had better take another look because it may well be a losing proposition. http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=700411 Those power cuts have staggered business as usual. The meltdown is beginning.

Brav

That is the one nice thing I like about the US (where I reside). Criminals get their firearms illegally, so I just buy mine legally. So they'd have a nice surprise should they ever try to break into my house. Wish it were the same in SA.

Being young, I don't know much about pre-1994 and apartheid/white rule days. When did the crime start to get this bad, and, how was it prior to 94 and 90?

Daxk

Brav, somewhere in this here puter I have Crime,specifically Murder Stats going to back 1950 in which year there were 8 murders prosecuted.
Prior to the Republic accurate stats on crime are non existant unless they refer to Capital Crime and unfortunately Black people were seldom reflected as they were basically considered unimportant.
Having said that if you look at the Freedom Monument erected by the ANC to ALL black people murdered from Dingaans time till today, they are only honouring 70,000 Deaths or the equivalent of the last 4 years murder toll in SA.
When did it get so bad??
When the Experienced SAP Officers were forced into early retirement after 1994.,Detection rates and convictions fell.
Law society of SA did a report in 2003 that highlighted that if you committed either a murder or a rape your chances of going to Jail were 11% and 9% respectively based on two years reported crimes vs Convictions.

MartynK

I have the stats somewhere, but they don't necessarily mean very much, because they're skewed by historical and current under-reporting, poor capture/collation and a number of other factors. There is also a considerable variance between the figures reported to certain SAPS departments, and the figures published by the SAPS Bureau of Statistics, or whatever its called now.

Broadly speaking, car theft began to increase noticeably in or about 1985. Most cars didn't have immobilisers and relied on steering locks, and various types of cut outs which were often DIY jobs. The car security industry started to get its act together over the next few years, and the perpetrators began turning to hijacking around 1990 - 1991 because the systems were getting harder to crack. There was a joke doing the rounds then. "Can you remember when you could get your car stolen, when you weren't actually inside it?".

The rest of the crime wave followed. Placing the blame on government affirmative action policies is simplistic, and the reality is far more complex, but it has been a factor.

Daxk

Not simplistic at all,MartinK,major contributory factor as without trained personnel, procedures were'nt followed,which meant prosecutors could'nt get evidence timeously,which meant overcrowding in Jails for awaiting trial prisoners, which meant judges allowing more Bail applications which meant more crime etc etc etc to paraphrase Yul Brynner.

Juggernaut

Through a mutual friend, I know quite a few of those experienced SAP officers. Some of those guys are now quite frank about their reasons for leaving the force, fire brigade most of our civil services.
They dindnt know what was going to happen post 94. Nobody forced them out. They feared what might happen to them under black rule and even having to work under a black superior .For as far they were concerned then no black man can ever be their equal never mind their superior! The private sector then still completely in minority hands was a welcome haven.

Lets not forget that the police force werent nearly large enough post 94.They werent there to protect and serve 40 million citizens only to protect and serve 10 million. The same applies to the courts.

Crime spiralled and the police and justice system was now spread woefully thin.

Campbells

Gees mate,

You sure have a thing about this black / white thing.

Thank God that my son growing up outside Africa will not be exposed to all that