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Unable to rely on the South African Police Service to secure the state, national government departments and other organs of state are currently engaged in hundreds of long-term private security contracts of various lengths, costing the fiscus over R16,9 billion. 

This amount does not include the dozens of month-to-month contracts to which various departments and state-owned entities are party. It also does not include the private security contracts in which provincial and local governments are engaged. 

Across all spheres and branches of government, it is likely that close to R100 billion is being spent each year on private security contracts by the state, to provide services that ought to be provided by the police. 

In March this year, various members of Parliament submitted parliamentary questions to cabinet ministers to enquire whether the departments under their control and any entities reporting to them make use of any private security firms. If so, they were asked, in each case, what the name of each firm was, and the purpose, value and duration of each specified contract. OIH is in possession of the various responses that were submitted back to Parliament. 

It is unsurprising that even the state is so heavily reliant on private security. Such is SAPS’s incapacity to prevent and investigate crime that all South Africans (rich and poor) have become heavily reliant on these services. Data published last month shows that actively employed private security officers now outnumber SAPS officers by 4:1. 

Even South Africans who don’t personally employ private security indirectly rely on the industry’s services, which include guarding banks, shopping centres and hospitals, escorting goods and cash, and assisting the police with arrests. Without private security, South Africa’s crime situation would be even worse than it currently is — a possibility that should concern every South African. 

It is therefore incomprehensible that the government still has plans to enact the Firearms Control Amendment Bill. The Bill’s amendment to section 91(2) of the Firearms Control Act, imposing severe limitations on private security providers’ ability to possess ammunition, will render the private security industry effectively unable to use force to fight violent crime. 

The Bill will furthermore make it illegal to own a firearm for self-defence, and imposes dramatic limitations on hunting and sports shooting licences, which would bring the entire South African hunting industry to an end.

The Bill will leave South Africans — and the state — solely reliant on an ailing police service which has no clear plan to improve, without the ability to protect themselves with firearms or contract with private security to do so. 

According to statistics published by the Minister last month, 6 163 people were murdered in South Africa between July and September this year, at a rate of 68 people per day. This included 897 women and 287 children. 9 556 people were raped in the same period, an increase in 7.1% on the previous quarter. A staggering 72 762 cases of common assault and assault with intention to do grievous bodily harm were opened with SAPS in those three months, not to mention the thousands of cases that went unreported. 

National Police Commissioner General Khehla Sitole told the South African Human Rights Commission this month that SAPS’s human capital is severely strained. According to Gen Sitole, the SAPS’s Public Order Policing is understaffed, with only 5 005 members nationwide out of an ideal 12 000. Not only do similar shortcomings exist throughout the departments and units of the police service, but they are likely to intensify with billions in budget cuts planned for the next three years. 

While the Portfolio Committee on Police announced a welcome move last week to hold the Bill back and focus on other legislative priorities instead, the Bill has not been withdrawn. Recognising the extensive reliance on private security in South Africa, it is unfathomable that government still has plans to cripple the industry. 

Minister Cele must act responsibly and abandon this legislation, before South Africans are left powerless to protect themselves against the rising tide of murder, rape, robbery, and violent unrest, and organs of State are left as sitting ducks to criminals. 

Issued by Outdoor Investment Holdings CEO, Marco van Niekerk