NEWS: STOCK THEFT
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R819 million during the
2014/2015 period, with goats
to the value of R65 million,
sheep to the value of R143
million and cattle to the value
of R610 million disappearing.
Says the forum: “This scourge
threatens both the commercial farming sector as well as
the emergent farming sector
in most of the country.
Aspects that are not always
RAINFALL
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from a racing certainty and it
could therefore be that our
rainfall this summer is, at best,
average.
If this is the case, we can at
least hope that the spread of
rainfall is more even than it
taken into account when
livestock is stolen, is the
impact thereof on job security
of workers and the dependence of livestock owners on
food and economic survival.”
In the current crime reporting
year, stock theft increased by
6.5% but no research to
determine the reasons for the
increase has been conducted.
The prevalence of stock theft
cannot be attributed only to
the activities of SAPS, but also
to the non-compliance by
livestock owners and traders
who do not see to it that
livestock are properly
identified by means of an
identification mark (tattoo or
brand).
Livestock buyers such as
farmers, speculators, stockauctions, feedlots and
abattoirs can be, or are
unknowingly, recipients of
stolen livestock as they do not
ensure that the livestock they
purchase comply with the
was last season, with both a
greater number of meaningful provisions of the law. In the
process the laws are transshowers, but also with a
gressed and heavy fines can
better spread of the total
be imposed or a perpetrator
between the first half of the
can be prosecuted.
season leading up to
The sale and purchase of
Christmas, and the second
livestock in South Africa is
half in the new year.
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covered by two pieces of
legislation, transgressions of
which can prove costly. The
Animal Identification Act, (Act
6 of 2002), makes provision
for the compulsory marking of
livestock and the Stock Theft
Act, (Act 57 of 1959) controls
the movement of livestock.
Both of these acts help the
SAPS to combat stock theft
and make it easier to recover
stolen livestock.
However, it appears that a
large part of the livestock
trade does not comply by the
provisions of these acts and
thus do not comply with the
basic requirements to prevent
stock theft.
The National Stock Theft
Prevention Forum therefore
Continued on page 12