President of Super Value and Portion Control Food Store Stores Rupert Roberts said Tuesday his company’s annual losses are in the area of $3.5 million, although there was a period when it was as high as $5 million.
Mr. Roberts added that 99 percent of the money is never traced.
“It just disappears and we don’t know where it goes,” he told the Bahama Journal. “Statistics say 80 percent of your losses are people who have access to them, including your customers and staff. Most of our staff are not contributing to that and I’m not calling our loyal, dedicated staff shoplifters in no way shape or form.”
Mr. Roberts, who has 500 employees, pointed out that the company uses every measure possible to reduce the losses.
“We have cameras on the registers,” he said. “We have cameras throughout the store and we have cameras outside the building. Those measures have brought the stock shortage down some…the more we do, the less stock shortage we have.”
According to Officer in Charge of the Central Detective Unit, Police Chief Superintendent Marvin Dames, detectives from the Commercial Crime Squad were inundated by an inordinate number of reports of employee theft in 2003.
While giving a synopsis of the status of crime for 2003 on Monday, Mr. Dames said 44 matters related to stealing by reason of employment, were reported to the unit.
Employers had losses totaling more than $ 2 million, he reported.
“We are aware that this category of crime is seldom reported to the police,” Mr. Dames said. “Unless the losses are significant, some businesses prefer not to be bothered or are simply unaware due to poor inventory control policies.”
In an interview with The Bahama Journal Tuesday, President of The Bahamas Employers Confederation Brian Nutt explained that there are two primary reasons employers do not take many employees to court.
“Number one, and this is especially true for smaller businesses, they can’t afford the time away from their businesses to consult with the police, the prosecutor, lawyers and then spend time in the courts,” Mr. Nutt pointed out.
He said another reason why some employers don’t follow through on any action is because in many cases there may not be enough evidence to have a criminal conviction where evidence is required to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
“In the past, some employers who have experienced employee theft have experienced employees who have been acquitted at the criminal trial and gone to the Labour Department claiming that they were innocent and claiming wrongful dismissal,” Mr. Nutt said.
Mr. Nutt, whose group represents 100 businesses, said employers have from time to time expressed concerns regarding employee theft.
“It’s not a new phenomenon,” he said. “It’s something that we have been experiencing in the Bahamas for quite a long time. There are individuals, for example, economists, who predict that employee theft and related costs account for $300 million to $400 million in the Bahamas per year.
“One of the things that many of us realize and know is that every time we walk into a food store or retail market is that part of the price that we’re paying for the goods is to cover the cost of theft by reason of employment that goes on in those establishments,” Mr. Nutt added.
He pointed to a survey released by the Coalition of Private Sector Organizations a few months ago as a means of measuring the millions of dollars in losses experienced by merchants.
“Based on the responses to employee theft, it showed that if you extrapolated the number of the people who responded, that $100 million can easily be accounted for as being the cost although that was just a ballpark figure,” Mr. Nutt said.
Chief Superintendent Hulan Hanna said one of the ways to monitor employee activity is by ensuring that there is proper auditing of merchandise.
He said this would help guard against workers who try to manipulate manual records and even technology.
Mr. Hanna also suggested conducting frequent inspections of items.
“Inspect your goods to make sure that the quality of the merchandise is consistent,” he advised. “Sometimes persons can in fact damage items so they could be reduced, thrown out and they could take it.
“If you feel strongly enough about it, you need to put electronic devices in place, where persons who are leaving at the end of the day, go through these devices to satisfy you, that nothing has been removed.”
By Hadassah Hall, The Bahama Journal
