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Editor's note

We read about it often - corruption in the police force, traffic officers taking bribes, baggage handlers at airports going through passengers' luggage... who can we trust?

According to a story in the Daily News on 5 January ( http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20070105104059905C612151&set_id=1&click_id=13&sf=), results of a study undertaken by the Security Association of South Africa (SASA) revealed that South Africans trust their private security companies more than they do the police. Is this because they get paid more? Because they are trained better? Because they do not have a reputation of being easily bribed, perhaps? In the latter case, it is sad that a few corrupt cops have given the entire force that reputation.

The training of security officers has come a long way over the last few years as Dawood Alexander, chairperson of the Security Standards Generating Body (SGB), explained at the last South African Institute of Security lunch seminar.

Better training is a good thing, then it is up to the individuals to have the right attitude while doing a job that requires interacting with members of the public throughout the day. I know that I would not want to put my life in the hands of a lot of the security staff members that I come across!

Better training and better attitude should then, ideally, be combined with better pay...

In a story that appeared in The Star on 8 February ( http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=181&art_id=vn20070208053046300C816370) a security guard employed at OR Tambo International claimed: "Whatever we steal we sell so that we can get money."

This is scary stuff! But money, it would seem in cases like this, really is a root to evil.

I must just add that the security company I am now happy to pay every month has displayed the patience of saints, along with impressive reaction times, in the last few weeks when a faulty back door kept triggering the alarm. Thanks ADT.

Till next month,

Lynne

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