By The private security sector is one of the largest employers in South Africa, with just over 2.7 million registered security officers; however, it is an industry with a lot of red tape that is discouraging to small companies trying to enter the market.
The Free State Private Security Regulatory Forum, composing of private security companies in the province has raised concern over the R5 million functional requirement for companies to actually get a job in government or the municipality.
According to the Coordinator of the Forum, Mr Marven Motseki, who also owns a private security company Metro Force Security, says the requirements are heavy for start-up security companies, who do not even have the financial muscle to meet some of the requirements and is calling on government to scrap them.
“We ask for the government to create a conducive environment for security companies to be able to compete in the industry; where are we supposed to get R5 million? Let them scrap that completely. We can’t grow the economy with such requirements that kill businesses,” said Motseki.
Motseki raised concerns that affect the industry saying, as per standard, security companies charge R20 000 per guard, but schools demand three guards for R15 000, which is an indictment to security companies, as such, they are unable to save any money or even grow their businesses, the board expects them to pay each guard at least R7 000.
Whenever security companies have secured a tender with municipalities, they take forever to pay them. Marven Motseki is appealing to municipalities to pay for services rendered within 30 days. He alleges that government does not listen to them and is very dismissive towards them.
The Coordinator says they have tried to meet with officials at municipalities, in particular Mangaung Metro with no success. Motseki alleges that the municipality is employing security companies from other provinces while there are a number of local competent security companies around that the municipality can use.
He has further called on the provincial government to assist in opening up the market for emerging security companies; pointing out that there are large shops like Shoprite found in townships, but none of them employ a black owned security company; including the banks in townships.
The Executive Mayor of Mangaung Metro Cllr Gregory Nthatisi told The Business Weekly that, the municipality has advertised security company services, the municipalities emphasis is on knowledge economy and equally so on localisation. He said in the event where they cannot get specialised units in the provinces, and in particular in the metro, the municipality will enforce that there be joint ventures.
“There is no way in which you can have services that you are providing to our people and those services are not informed by the needs on the ground and the employment of our people and creating employment opportunities.
Gone are the days where we actually accessing services from outside the metro without the metro as a stakeholder taking a stake in it. It is our effort, not only in security but in a number of disciplines,” said the Mayor Gregory Nthatisi.
The Department of Economic, Small Business Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (DESTEA) is yet to respond to our inquiry.
