Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

14 October 2025

2-minute read

South Africa’s international airports are possibly underprepared for bomb threats ahead of the G20 Summit set to take place in November, when world leaders will converge in the country.

According to Jimmy Roodt, operations director and explosives manager at Gauntlet Security Systems, “South Africa doesn’t have a bomb safety standard.” In his detailed assessment of bomb safety standards across SA’s international airports, he says that each one has “failed it miserably.”

While all countries have around the same safety standards, SA is the only one that never developed its own bomb safety standard, leaving government and professional officers as well as private security companies to use “fire threat codes and protocols” to deal with bomb threats.

He highlights that the bomb safety standard gives a guideline for bomb mitigation measures covering “threat assessment, response plans, bomb mitigation plans, evacuation plans, phone calls, training” and all other mitigation techniques.

With the upcoming G20, Jimmy says that the bomb safety standard can be applied before the summit takes place. There are two levels of security – tier 2, which is the services government offers through the bomb squad, and tier 1 that covers airports and hotels services. He reiterated that there is time to resolve “kill zones” or “death threats”.

From 2006 to 2010, there were approximately 19000 bomb threats per year, says Jimmy. With crime on the rise, and even in the absence of further data on bomb threats, it is more than likely that these numbers have either stayed the same or risen considerably.

While there are 8 phases in bomb threat incidents, only phase 6 is the responsibility of the police, meaning that the other 7 phases are the responsibility of the employer who should be outsourcing them to professional organizations. There is nothing stopping different communities within the country from establishing their own private bomb response units, Jimmy concluded. Members from communities can register a private security company providing a bomb responder service to mitigate the threat of bombs.

Listen to the full interview with Ml Sulaimaan Ravat and Jimmy Roodt here.