The South African Police Service is spending R66,5-million a year on hiring private security companies to guard its stations and police buildings.
The 10 security firms benefiting most from this bonanza include three that appear not to be registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (Sira) — a statutory requirement.
When the police media relations office in Pretoria was asked to list the top 10 contractors, it included Executive Armed International and Umkhombo Security Service in Gauteng and Conwezi Security Service in the Western Cape.
By law, all security firms must be registered with Sira, which said it had no record of the three companies. According to Telkom, none of the companies have listed telephone numbers. When the SAPS was asked for the towns or cities where the companies are based, it omitted the three from the list.
SAPS media director Phuti Setati said the police ”cannot comment on your assertion that some of the companies are not registered”.
According to the police, 190 stations, 81 of which are in Gauteng, are guarded 24 hours a day by unarmed and armed guards. Other police buildings, including the police training college, the police dog school, divisional commissioners’ offices and the forensic science laboratory, all in Pretoria, are also guarded.
Protection is also given to VIP protection units throughout the country.
The system was introduced in 2002 to free policemen to carry out the ”crime prevention duties for which they are trained”. A Protea Security guard outside the Tongaat police station said the aim was to prevent the theft of guns and ammunition from the station.
The SAPS media department confirmed that the annual cost of private sector security services was R66,5-million. Last year, Parliament was told the annual figure was R45-million.
About 1 800 police constables could be employed for this amount. After spending six months at the police training college, constables earn about R36 000 a year, with allowances.
The use of private firms — some of them apparently unregistered — to guard police stations has drawn a sharp reaction from other operators in the security industry.
”How can the police employ illegal firms? The fact that they won’t comment indicates it’s true,” said Frank Labidi, who runs a KwaZulu-Natal firm, IPSS Electronic Security. ”By employing outside firms to guard them, they are making themselves the laughing stock of the world. I don’t know of anywhere else where this happens.”
Labidi remarked that the country badly needed more policemen ”and that’s what they should spend this money on. That way, they can do various duties, whereas our guards have only one use.”
Questions have also been asked about the tender procedures used in appointing companies to carry out guard duties.
SAPS spokesperson Captain Jacky Nkoana said appointments were only made after tenders were sent to the police tender evaluation section, which checked ”terms and references, functionality and prices”.
But Labidi claimed the work was not advertised and tenders were not opened in public. He said he was asked in July to submit a quote for six D-grade guards for the Umhlali station in KwaZulu-Natal, which remained unguarded for three months between contracts, quoting R3 200 plus VAT per guard per month.
Yet the two-year contract went to Warrior Alarms. ”I was never told officially who got the contract or what the rate was,” Labidi complained.
Asked what his company charged the police for the sentry service, Frank Gonsalves, Warrior’s operations manager, said: ”One of the conditions of the tender is that we don’t talk about guarding police stations.”
But, when this reporter phoned Warrior as a potential client, he was told the rate for a D-grade guard is ”around R6 000” a month.
Labidi commented: ”They ask people like me to quote so they can say they complied with regulations by getting three quotes, and then they take a higher one.”
D- and E-grade guards qualify to provide access control of premises after a week’s training, while C- grade guards are entitled to carry a gun after a week’s training and an additional week of learning to use firearms.