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The sounds of silence?

This is a topic we will continue to revisit in Hi-Tech Security Solutions, albeit it often with little change in the answers we receive. Chatting to four of the big ‘Esses’ – SIA , SASA, SAIS and SSEO, shed some light on the current status of interactivity with the relevant government role players.

Jenny Reid, president of SASA (Security Association of South Africa) said that the organisation would love to work more closely with government. “This is especially relevant with regard to the industry provident fund and compliance of security companies. However, we do realise that PSIRA (Private Security Regulatory Authority), as a representative of government, does not have sufficient resources to visit all non-compliant companies. This is where a collaborative effort would work, by pooling our resources and delegating tasks.”

Adding insult to injury, according to Reid, is the fact that government utilises the services of non-compliant private security companies. “It is easy to understand the frustration of companies that play by the rule book. Obviously, in many cases your compliant companies charge more than the non-compliant ones as they are generally investing substantial portions of their profits in training and compliance issues. Government needs to support those companies who go the extra mile to remain compliant.”

Reid pointed out that non-compliance is in fact grounds for companies to be held criminally liable. “An education process, spearheaded by government and industry is necessary and I believe that a bargaining council would be the solution to opening the doors for effective communication to take place.”

To your health

Tony Botes, the administrator/secretary at the SSEO (Security Services Employers Association), said that negotiations with the Department of Labour (DoL) regarding the adoption of a medical aid for the private security sector have been ongoing for many years.

“We even went as far down the line as interviewing possible service providers. However, I believe that we are not going to achieve any resolution in the foreseeable future. This is due to three factors:

(1) Compliance issues.

(2) The administration of the fund – who will do this?

(3) The experience we have had with our provident fund has been disappointing to say the least. We have had three service providers in the past 10 years and neither the DoL nor PSIRA has the necessary capacity to police the scheme,” said Botes.

He continued that another stumbling block is the affordability of a medical aid scheme for the sector. “Since 80% of employees in the private security sector earn less than R3000 a month, even the most cost effective medical aid scheme can be onerous. If they elect for the hospital plan option, they are forced to attend a government hospital. This defeats the issue as they receive virtually free medical care at the government hospitals anyway.”

Training?

According to Errol Peace, chairman of SAIS (South African Institute of Security), government has made many promises with regard to promulgating laws around training in the private security sector that are yet to come to fruition. “Industry has come to the party by simplifying the training material and making the training more affordable.

“Surely, one of the aims of government is to empower people? Why then are we seeing no change in the status quo regarding training? The private security sector is a major contributor to the training levies coffers. With 1% of our collective wage bills going into the SSETA, why are we not seeing a proportionate return on our investment?” said Peace.

“In order to provide an effective security service to the market, training becomes a fundamental necessity. The result is that many companies have elected to undertake their own learnership-compliant training for their employees. The downside is that they need to self-fund the training and claim it back from SARS, through the income tax rebate process, since government has not rubber-stamped the repayment of grants to training facilitators. These companies will however, reap the benefits when government finally decides to legislate compliance since they will already be compliant,” Peace explained.

A glimmer of hope

Steve Conradie, CEO of SIA (Security Industry Alliance) said that there has been some positive and constructive debate between PSIRA and SIA of late. “Although the new Minister of Police, Ms Nathi Mthethwa, is not open to communicating with us, we have made some inroads with PSIRA.

“We are currently discussing compliance issues and they are definitely sitting up and listening to our issues. They have promised to set up a broader based platform to address industry concerns,” Conradie concluded.

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