Businesses forced to shell out for security as threats increase

The latest world security report compiled by the world’s largest security firm, Allied Universal, found out that there had been an increase in the number of physical threats against top company executives worldwide.

While the global increase is ratified by 42% of surveyed chief security officers (CSO) worldwide, 28% of surveyed SA CSOs noted this increase.

This has forced businesses to spend significantly on the safety of top executives and security in general.

Over the years this has trained our private security sector to put in place mitigating measures to respond to the increase in threats to executives.

Unfortunately, the money spent on security is money that could be spent elsewhere, investing in the businesses and funding growth and development.

“The [report] shows that 28% of SA CSOs reported an increase in threats of violence towards executives, yet local companies are among the best prepared globally, with higher than average levels of executive protection, threat monitoring and crisis preparedness,” G4S Africa regional president Christo Terblanche said.

This effectively means SA companies spend more on security than the global average.

But this is not the whole picture. South Africans, in general, have been increasingly relying on private security over the years. 

We have seen this trend rise to produce a private security sector that is now much larger than the entire police force.

According to the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority’s 2023/2024 annual report, there are 608,977 registered security officers in the country and 184,106 police officers.

This type of spending on security is a consequence of the loss of trust in the police service and their ability to protect, not only business executives, but also the public.

While on the one side it has established a huge security sector, it represents an unnecessary financial drag on businesses and private households, which also fund the police service through taxes.

None of this is good for business, which is the primary creator of jobs. However, it is also not good for citizens whose safety is now firmly in their own hands.

The ongoing Madlanga Commission is exposing an even worse predicament. We have a police service which is not only inadequate, but deeply compromised.

It was intentionally decapacitated by political players aligned to the ANC who were deployed specifically to shield the political class from accountability.

Now that same police force has been infiltrated by criminal cartels which, most likely, have connections with international criminal networks.

The security of our country is seriously compromised, as KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has said.

Think about the damage unleashed by former president Jacob Zuma during his era, particularly to crime intelligence.

That catastrophic damage, a result of the repurposing of crime intelligence into a political tool, left SA with virtually zero crime intelligence.

We are now, deep in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s era, at the mercy of criminal cartels, which have their own intelligence networks, including compromised agents within what is left of our crime intelligence.

The political players who have exposed our country to this extent of compromise have effectively sabotaged the security of SA from the inside.

Faced with this level of crises, the threats faced by top business executives pale in comparison.

Yet, it is the resilience of these top executives which keeps the cogs of our economy turning. Their investment in security, which allows the executives to operate, is part of the thin line that prevents this country from being overrun by criminal cartels.

Should criminal cartels take over, legitimate private businesses will be pushed out of operation. They will pull out their already sizeable investments and invest in other economies abroad, leaving us at the mercy of ruthless cartels.

This will make the infamous ruthlessness of capitalist captains non-existent in comparison.

The cost borne by South Africans towards private security, though largely concentrated in affluent areas, plays a significant role in mitigating complete criminal chaos in our country.

The co-operation between the police and private security is also a contributor in mitigating a complete collapse. 

In the virtual absence of crime intelligence, though not ideal or primarily focused on citizens, the monitoring capabilities of private security play an increasingly important role.

The prospective repeat of the 2021 riots remains a disturbing factor.

Our entire security cluster, private and state, needs to be vigilant considering the revelations involving powerful criminals and politicians, and their deep desire to evade justice.