Risk managers would be foolish to ignore terror threat in South Africa

Global terrorism is both a cause and a symptom of the fragility across the world, according to Rachel McLaughlin, director at S-RM Intelligence and Risk Consulting. She warned of the way Al-Shabaab spread from Kenya to Tanzania and said no business should consider itself immune – even in South Africa.

They should all be developing processes and offering staff training in case they are exposed to increased risk, she believes.

“South Africa is considered relatively low [risk] but we would be foolish to dismiss the threat,” she warned.

Since January 2016, more than two thirds of terrorism events have been in the Middle East and north Africa, she said, but there have been attacks all over the world – from Nice to Istanbul and Dakar in just the space of a few days.

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Very few companies act entirely in geographical isolation, Ms McLaughlin said, and it should be factored into their risk thinking.

If staff are sent overseas, they should be alert to the terror threat, even if they are not travelling to an “expected” hostile zone.

“You must think about the many staff who travel for business and also consider the personal risk of travel,” she said. “Your staff could simply be changing planes and be at risk from an attack – as we saw in Istanbul. It is entirely plausible that we are travelling through a high risk zone. And in Bangladesh, the attackers deliberately targeted tourists.”

Risk managers should at least consider the heightened risk and make travellers more aware, so they are more able to cope in the event of being caught up in a terror attack.

Looking to South Africa, she said complacency can become a threat in itself. Because it is generally considered a benign area, with a low risk, she said people can be in danger of ignoring the warning signs.

Ms McLaughlin pointed to warnings from the Australian, British and US embassies to their nationals in South Africa around an increased risk in shopping centres. Having worked in the UK’s Ministry of Defence, she explained there would have been credible information to spark that warning, while the embassies would have also had a duty to protect their nationals.

Recent attacks elsewhere in the world have highlighted the risk of the ‘lone wolf’ attack, using guns rather than explosives. Ms McLaughlin said it is far easier for people to get hold of guns than explosives and they also require a lot less training, while for the security forces they can be a lot harder to track and stop.

The key message, she said, is that companies offer support and advice to all their staff, and need to be aware as staff travel on business of exactly where they are going and how they will be protected.

She warned: “Threats will differ from location to location and will change from time to time. You must constantly review and update and incorporate the worst case scenario.

“Remember to plan for the worst while hoping for the best. It can seem a waste of time but in the UK we had huge teams of experts looking towards Russia, then the Cold War ended and they all disappeared – now they wish they had those Russian experts to hand.”

Ms McLaughlin cautioned that having a plan was not enough. It needed to be flexible, she said, but also involve all stakeholders.

“Everyone needs to know their role in responding to a crisis. You need to test those plans – you can’t afford to wait until something happens before testing. And make use of sound intelligence – too often people ignore the warning signs,” she explained.

And in a final warning, she added: “People are always interested in what I say but they are also very busy and they head back to their offices and nothing gets changed as other things take priority.”