In a panel discussion at the Black Business Council’s Annual Summit, Sitho Mdlalose, CEO of Vodacom South Africa, underscored the significance of tackling crime for business and professional prosperity. With a focus on poverty eradication, gender-based violence, and cybercrime prevention, Mdlalose highlighted the need for collaborative efforts between government and the private sector.
As poverty levels have risen in South Africa, so too has the scourge of gender-based violence become more prevalent as well as incidents of mobile network infrastructure vandalism.
As part of a panel at the Black Business Council’s Annual Summit yesterday, Sitho Mdlalose, CEO of Vodacom South Africa, tackled the theme: “Dealing decisively with Crime for Businesses and Professionals to Thrive?”
Attended by government Ministers and captains of industry, the panel discussed the relationship between mental illness, crime and socio-economic development. In response to Minister Bheki Cele’s clarion call to business and broader society to contribute towards the eradication of poverty, particularly amongst the youth as this will have a residual positive impact on the alleviation of crime, Sitho highlighted the importance of partnerships between government and the private sector to address socio-economic challenges He also unpacked Vodacom’s psycho-social support programme in the fight against gender-based violence in schools; the intersection between mobile network site vandalism, network availability and crime in general; including the need for corporates to be vigilant against cybercrime.
We see it as our duty to not only build our own systems and platforms to be resilient and impervious to cyber-crimes, but also to ensure that we empower enterprises, small businesses and the public sector, with solutions that will provide the same level of protection against cybercrime.
Sitho Mdlalose, CEO, Vodacom South Africa
