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Gambia
Wackenhut Security (Group 4)
November
28, 2005 Daily Observer
The two staff members of Wackenhut security firm, who were implicated in the
aborted groundnut theft at the Gambia Agricultural Marketing Company Ltd (Gamco) a few months ago, were on Thursday arraigned
before Magistrate Mboto of the Banjul Magistrates'
Court on a two-count charge of conspiracy to commit felony and stealing.
Lagos
November
18, 2005 AllAfrica.com
DEPUTY controller of prisons (DCP) Ikoyi Prisons
Lagos, Mr. Ralph Ikeh, yesterday called for the
establishment of private prisons in the country. He argued that the private
prisons among other benefits, would help generate revenue for the owners as
well as the government because people who would afford the cost will like to
be taken to such prisons where they will have enough comfort similar to what is
obtainable in some other parts of the world.
Malawi
Group 4
February
1, 2008 Daily Times
SOME of Standard Bank services have been negatively affected due to the on going industrial action by Group 4 Securicor (G4S),
the bank has announced. In a statement published Thursday the bank says it
has taken some measures to find alternative means for the affected areas.
“However, we have been assured by Group 4 Securicor management that normal
services will resume soon,” reads part of the statement. The strike started
Wednesday with guards demanding a 30 percent annual salary increment which
management refused saying they could only manage 12 percent. The court
however, stopped the strike after management got an injunction Tuesday
evening and employees were told to go back to work on Wednesday morning as
the workers’ union also went to court to seek an injunction which the court
refused to grant them. According to The Daily Times investigations G4S
charges it clients K18, 834.45 for a guard on a 12 hour shift. Those with an
Malawi School Certificate of Education (equivalent of O levels ), who are
also known as commissioners, are at K29,412.83 while those putting on
Securicor Uniform are at K23,477.52. The investigations also revealed that
the rates customers pay for a Dog and Handler is K40, 632.32 and a supervisor
is at K23, 477.75 and the patrol and alarm guards are at K10, 161.87. However
despite netting so much money for the company the starting salary for a guard
is K3200 per month (K8 per hour) and those with more experience get about
K4000(K11 per hour).There is no guard who gets more than K20, 000. Government
has announced with effect from January this year a minimum wage of about K129
per day for those in town up from K87 and K95 in rural areas from K66. G4S is
an international company that has branches all over the world. In the United
Kingdom their guards do not get less than 5.68 pounds per hour (about K1,700) or K40,000 per 24 hour shift.
September
4, 2007 The Daily Times
Ndirande Police have arrested seven people in
connection with the theft of assorted goods valued at over K500,000 on July
24 from Blantyre’s Superior Hotel. Blantyre Police spokesperson Elizabeth Divala Monday said four of the seven were security guards
employed by Group 4 Securicor. The seven are Clifford Chatha,
26, Benjamin Chipwete, 28, Dex
Hamoni, 24, Mosses Wyson,
27, Lawrence Ludechi, 19, Henry Nkamero,
26, and Mphatso Sigamba,
26. “The seven were arrested on August 25 after some members of the public
tipped the police of the suspects’ whereabouts. “Our officers in Ndirande, acting on the tip raided the suspects’ hideout.
The seven appeared before Blantyre Magistrate last Thursday and were remanded
at Chichiri Maximum Prison waiting for trial”. Divala explained that after stealing the goods the seven
kept the entire loot consisting of mattresses, Screens, blankets and
telephone receivers at a safe house in Ndirande. Divala said police recovered the stolen materials.
Mozambique
Group 4 (formerly Wackenhut)
April 15, 2011 All Africa
The Mozambican judicial authorities on Thursday ordered the release of the 24
workers from the firm Group Four Securicor (G4S) who were jailed in Maputo
awaiting trial on charges relating to demonstrations outside the G4S offices
on 6 April. The decision was made by Judge Ana Felisberto
Cunha of the Maputo Judicial Court, on presentation of declarations of
identity and residence by the strikers. The release of the workers comes
after the company withdrew the criminal complaints it had made against the
group. According to G4S managing director, Pedro Baltazar,
the decision to withdraw the charges was taken during a meeting of the Board
of Directors held in Maputo on Monday as part of efforts to find a peaceful
solution to the labour dispute at the company. The
workers' lawyer, Salvador Nkamati, said that the 24
will have to wait for new developments, and must comply with certain
obligations imposed by the law. "They will have to appear before the
Court whenever requested, as well as other relevant authorities such as the
police and prosecutors" he explained. Riot police used excessive force
to disperse workers who were protesting outside the human resources
department of the Maputo branch of G4S. A riot police unit was ordered to the
scene after protestors broke windows and tore up fencing. According to the
newspaper "O Pais", despite having been
beaten and arrested, the security guards are still loyal to the company and
are all set on returning to work. However, the General Secretary of the
National Union of Private Security Workers (SINTESP), Julio Sitoe, argued that they should be entitled to
compensation from the company for injuries sustained when members of the riot
police violently attacked the demonstration.
August
13, 2009 All Africa
Mozambique's Labour Minister, Helena Taipo has banned, with immediate effect, the work permit
of both the Chief Executive Officer and financial manager of the private
security group G4S in the country, Caper Van Merw
and Sharmain Norton respectively. A press release
issued by the Labour Ministry and cited by the
daily "Noticias" states that this is due
to "violations of principles embodied in the Constitution of the
Republic of Mozambique and the current legislation in Mozambique", In
the same document, the Labour Ministry advises the
company to appoint a new management. In an unrelated event, over hundred
workers from G4S have resumed their strikes on Wednesday to protest for the
lack of payment of four hours overtime on a daily basis. The strikers from
the private security companies subsidiaries of the security group G4S,
including Alpha, Securicor, Wackenhut and Safetech,
gathered outside G4S headquarters in Maputo, are also claiming strict
compliance with a daily shift of eight hours. G4S is thus once again in
flagrant breach of the Mozambican labour law, which
sets the working day as eight hours, and anything above this must be paid for
as overtime. The strike, which could indefinitely, is also justified by the
fact that workers are being subject to acts of racism perpetrated by the some
of the members from G4S management. They also demand compliance with the
collective agreement signed by the workers and the management, which dictate
that the company must cover funeral and medical expenses to its employees,
among other issues, that should have been resolved by the first half of this
year. Castigo Meque, from
the Union of Private Security Companies, said to "Noticias"
that "G4S management failed to meet its obligation to pay by the end of
last month the money owned to the workers". He
added that the cause of disagreement of the employees and employers arise
because G4S management is failing to fulfil its
commitments, which is shows a total disregard to the Labour
Directorate that has been directly involved in solving the problem. 'Several
times accepted the promises made by the company management, but it seems to
be a strategy to buy time and not pay the money owed to workers,' said Meque. There was no word from the G4S management on the
strike. However, it is known that, once again, the Labour
Inspectorate summoned G4S to demand an explanation of the workers claims.
April
1, 2009 All Africa
Mozambican guards working for the London-based security company G4S are
threatening to take strike action on 13 April over the failure of the company
to pay them for overtime. According to a Tuesday report on the independent
television station STV, the G4S guards complain they are forced to work four
hours overtime a day (i.e. 12 hours rather than the standard eight hour
shift). The G4S workers' commission says the guards work
from 06.00 until 18.00, but are only paid for eight hours. G4S is thus
once again in flagrant breach of the Mozambican labour
law, which sets the working day as eight hours, and anything above this must
be paid for as overtime. On 19 March, the workers held a one day strike.
According to Boaventura Sibinde,
secretary of the National Union of Private Security Workers, in addition to
the overtime issue, the workers were protesting against the company's
decision to cut the funeral allowance from 5,000 meticais
(about 185 US dollars) to 3,900 meticais. In the
wake of this strike, representatives of the G4S management,
and of the strikers met with Labour Ministry
officials. This meeting agreed that overtime payment would be restored,
backdated to January. The money owing was to be paid at the end of month, but
this did not happen. Sibinde was infuriated that,
on 26 March, the G4S chairman declared that he did not recognise
the minutes of the meeting re-establishing the overtime pay, because he alone
could take such a decision. The company representatives at the meeting had no
decision making power he alleged. A G4S manager, Pedro Baltazar,
told STV that he had not yet received the formal notice from the workers'
commission of the strike set for 13 April. But he claimed that the
disagreements between the company and its workers would be solved
"gradually". G4S has an ugly record of trampling on workers rights all over the world. It has been in battles
with the Mozambican Labour Ministry about unpaid
overtime and severance pay before, but evades its responsibilities through
interminable appeals through the slow moving Mozambican legal system. Thus on
31 October last year, the Maputo City Court ordered the G4S subsidiary
Wackenhut to pay 300 guards sacked in 2006 9.5 million meticais
(about 356,000 dollars) in compensation. But the Mozambican court system is
so liberal that even the most open-and-shut cases can be appealed.
G4S-Wackenhut announced that it was appealing, which means this case must go
before the Supreme Court.
December
10, 2008 All Africa
Former security guards at the US embassy in Maputo have won their case for
compensation against their employer, the security company Wackenhut, but will
not see the money any time soon, since the company promptly announced that it
was appealing against the decision of the Maputo City Court. This case has
been dragging on since 2006. Wackenhut, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of
the London-based company Group Four Securicor (G4S), sacked 300 security
guards when the US embassy decided not to renew its contract with Wackenhut,
as from 15 October 2006. Wackenhut unilaterally dismissed these workers,
which gave them rights to large sums of severance pay. But Wackenhut then
changed its mind. The company said that, as from January 2007, it would
introduce eight hour, rather than 12 hour shifts. Premises guarded 24 hours a
day would now have three shifts instead of two. Rather than hire new staff,
Wackenhut recalled the 300 people it had just sacked. It wrote to them,
canceling the earlier notice, and telling them all to take paid leave until 4
January. Wackenhut was too late. Armed with the letters of notice, the
workers demanded their severance pay, and were supported by the Labour Ministry. The Labour
Inspectorate ordered Wackenhut to pay the severance money within ten days, or
risk being sued for disobedience under the Mozambican Criminal code.
Wackenhut still refused to pay, and so the workers opted to sue the company.
The case eventually appeared before judge Gracinda da Graca Muiambo,
of the 12th section of the Maputo City Court. She gave her ruling, in favour of the workers, on 31 October, but the absence of
any sense of public relations among the Mozambican judiciary means that only
now has the ruling come to the knowledge of the press. Judge Muiambo ordered Wackenhut to pay the guards a total of
9.5 million meticais (about 390,000 US dollars).
According to extracts from her ruling, published in Wednesday's issue of the
independent daily "O Pais", the court
found that the letters giving notice to the guards were sent out between 12
July and 20 August 2006, but that no severance pay followed. On 1 October the
workers found that Wackenhut had changed its mind, when it sent them letters
ordering them to stay at their posts because "a solution had been
found". But the workers did not want to go on working for Wackenhut, and
so refused to receive the second letter. Based on the letter of notice, they
stopped going to the US embassy, and their posts were occupied by guards from
another company, Safe Tech Lda. Wackenhut went on
paying the workers their normal monthly wages until January 2007. The court
noted that at no time did the company management meet with the workers to
negotiate renewing their contracts. It sacked them, and then tried to cancel
the sackings, without ever discussing the matter with the workers or their
trade union representatives. The court pointed out that as soon as the
workers received notice that their contracts with Wackenhut were being ended,
this created "expectations that they would be paid due
compensation". Furthermore, the whole point of a period of notice is
"to allow workers to seek alternative jobs". The workers' refusal
to return to Wackenhut, judge Muiambo added, should
not be interpreted as "bad faith". Rather it was a sign "that
they had lost confidence in the accused (Wackenhut), since they believed that
at any moment the company could once again cancel their work contracts".
Some of them might have been in the process of obtaining new jobs. Why should
they give those up just because Wackenhut had summoned them back? But the
clinching argument was legal. There is absolutely nothing in Mozambican law
that obliges workers to accept a job offer. But the law is very clear that
issuing a worker notice that his or her contract has been cancelled carries
with it the obligation to pay compensation. The court ruled that since
Wackenhut had indeed unilaterally cancelled the contracts of the 300 guards,
it was obliged, under the 1998 labour law, to pay
compensation. The court, calculated this, based on the length of service of
each guard, down to the last cent. (To be exact, Wackenhut was ordered to pay
9,486,448 meticais and 53 centavos). On top of
this, Wackenhut must pay all the legal costs of the case. But, like any
defendant with a smart lawyer, Wackenhut has taken advantage of the extremely
liberal appeals procedures under Mozambican law, under which even the most
open and shut cases are appealed right up to the Supreme Court. So it could
well be several more months (or even years, given the backlog of appeals
before the Supreme Court) before the workers see any of their money.
November
10, 2007 All Africa
Mozambique's Administrative Tribunal has rejected an appeal by the
Mozambican branch of the security company Wackenhut, a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the London-based Group Four Securicor (G4S), against an order
by the Labour Ministry to pay over 11 years of
overtime owing to its security guards. There is no doubt about the
substantive facts in the case. Wackenhut actually admitted that between 1994
and 2005 it had not paid any overtime. Hundreds of Mozambican guards had been
working 12 hour shifts, four hours more than the standard eight hour day.
After repeated demands from its workers that the company pay what it owed
them, in 2005 Wackenhut agreed to send the overtime dispute to arbitration.
The arbitration panel gave its ruling on 2 May 2006, and declared that
Wackenhut did have to pay the overtime, though it added that the exact sum
claimed by the workers of 33.9 billion old meticais
(about 1.3 million US dollars) had not been proved. Wackenhut seized on this
reservation as an excuse not to pay anything at all. In late 2006, the Labour Ministry called Wackenhut to several meetings at
which it attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade the company to pay up. A note
from the General Inspectorate of Labour, sent on 25
August 2006, ordered Wackenhut to pay the money within seven days. A second Labour Ministry note, of 30 August, warned Wackenhut that
failure to comply could lead to the closure of its operations in Mozambique.
Wackenhut appealed against the Ministry's order to the Administrative
Tribunal, the body which deals with the legality of administrative acts. The
appeal was dated 7 January 2007. However, the law on administrative disputes
states that administrative acts must be appealed
against within 90 days. Since the Labour Ministry
order was date 25 August 2006, Wackenhut should have appealed by 25 November.
The company's delay in taking any action should have been sufficient for the
Tribunal to throw the appeal out at once. Nonetheless, the First Section of
the Administrative Tribunal has now delivered a lengthy verdict, dated 30
October. (This long delay is nothing sinister - indeed, it is all too typical
of Mozambican appeal procedures). The appeal fell at the first hurdle: the
Tribunal declared it had "no object" - meaning that the decisions
it was appealing against did not fall into the category of
"administrative acts" at all, and therefore did not fall under the
Administrative Tribunal's mandate. For the General Inspectorate of Labour could not coerce Wackenhut into paying the money,
and on its own had no power to punish the company. To take the matter
further, it needed to accuse Wackenhut of the crime of disobedience, using
the law courts. This, the Tribunal said, was "a judicial, not an
administrative procedure". In short, the Tribunal has told Wackenhut
that it was knocking on the wrong door, since the disputes do not fall within
the sphere of Administrative Law at all, but within that of Labour Law. They should thus be judged by the ordinary
law courts (which, in the absence of specialised Labour Tribunals, handle disputes between workers and
their employers). Furthermore, the instructions from the Labour
Ministry took the form of mere "communications". The correct
channel for appealing against a communication from the General Inspectorate
of Labour is to take the matter to the Minister of Labour, the Tribunal pointed out. And since Wackenhut did
not contact the Minister within the ten days stipulated for such a move, it
lost the right to appeal. The Administrative Tribunal could have left matters
there - but it went much further, and accused Wackenhut of lying about the
decision of the arbitration panel. For while the arbitration ruling did
decide that the workers' figure was unproved, and while it did (unjustly, and
arguably unconstitutionally) say that only those still on the Wackenhut
payroll were entitled to the overtime pay, and not those who had left the
company, it did not give Wackenhut the right to pay whatever it liked. For
the key arbitration ruling, and one which Wackenhut ignored, was that, within
ten days of the arbitration decision, the Wackenhut management should have
presented a proper calculation of the overtime hours worked "based on
the legal formula to be provided by the Ministry of Labour".
Wackenhut did not contact the Ministry to seek this "legal
formula", and it did not provide its own calculation of the overtime
worked between January 1994 and February 2005. Since Wackenhut had not given
the basis on which any other figure could be calculated, the Ministry then
thought it was entirely within its rights to demand that Wackenhut pay the
33.9 billion meticais. Or, as the Administrative
Tribunal puts it, "the arbitration decision gives the Labour Ministry the discretionary power to provide a
basis for calculating the payment of the overtime". This was the power
that the Ministry had used to order Wackenhut to pay up, and it could not be
argued, as the Wackenhut appeal claimed, that the Ministry lacked the power
to make this demand. The figure had not been conjured out of thin air.
Initially, the workers and their trade union committee had claimed a rather larger sum - 34.3 billion meticais.
This figure was submitted to a technical commission set up by the arbitration
panel. The three parties who had appointed the arbitrators (the union
committee, Wackenhut and the Ministry) also appointed the technicians. But
the two technicians appointed by Wackenhut did not collaborate, and Wackenhut
reneged on a promise to support the technical commission by providing it with
data, computers and office space. It was thus the technicians appointed by
the ministry and the union that revised the sum demanded downward. They
excluded 42 employees who had not worked as guards, which reduced the sum
owing to 33.9 billion meticais. Despite boycotting
the technical commission, Wackenhut then made its own proposal to the
arbitrators. It said it was willing to pay overtime, but only for the period
February 2004 to February 2005, and only on the assumption of two hours
overtime per worker per day, which it calculated at 4.3 billion meticais. The union rejected this figure outright. At the
end of the arbitration, Wackenhut increased it to the round figure of five
billion meticais which it said the union could
distribute as it saw fit. There is nothing secret about any of this - it is
all in the arbitration document, but you wouldn't guess that from Wackenhut's
public statements. Wackenhut's real problem was not with the Labour Ministry, but with the Arbitration panel which
delivered a ruling it did not like. The company's response was to lie about
that ruling, and pretend it was implementing it, when in fact it refused to
do what the Panel ordered - namely to meet with the Ministry and fix a sum
for the overtime to be paid. Employers can appeal against arbitration - but
not to the Administrative Tribunal. Had Wackenhut wanted to overturn the
arbitration ruling, its correct course of action was to appeal to a civil
section of an ordinary Maputo law court.
October
10, 2007 All Africa
The Mozambican Labour Ministry has claimed that
the security company Group Four Securicor (G4S) has apologised
for the bad relations between the government and G4S in the past. According
to a Ministry press release, the apology came when the new manager of G4S's
operations, Cassie van der Merwe
(formerly head of G4S in Zambia), met on Monday with Labour
Minister Helena Taipo, the Deputy Minister, Soares Nhaca, and the General
Inspector of Labour, Joaquim
Siuta. Van der Merwe told the top leadership of the Ministry that he is
well aware that G4S has a bad reputation in Mozambique, and he apologised for 'the mistakes made in the past'. He
claimed that efforts are now being made to establish a good working
environment and labour justice in the company, and
the first step towards this was a collective agreement already reached with
the local trade union committee. The problems van der
Merwe has inherited date from the time when Jon
Mortimer was general manager in Mozambique of Wackenhut, the US-based
security company that is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of G4S. Under
Mortimer's management, Wackenhut was involved in two acrimonious battles with
its workforce. One involved a refusal to pay overtime for no less than 11
years (between 1994 and 2005), which led the Labour
Inspectorate to demand that the company pay its workers almost 34 billion old
meticais (about 1.36 million US dollars) for the
unpaid overtime. Wackenhut refused to do so and took the issue to court. In a
separate dispute, Wackenhut sacked 300 security guards after the US embassy
decided not to renew its contract with Wackenhut in October 2006, but failed
to pay them the redundancy money to which they were entitled. Again the Labour Inspetorate demanded
that Wackenhut pay up, and again Wackenhut refused. Mortimer gave a press
conference in December 2006, at which he claimed the Ministry had no power to
give the company instructions. As for the money owed to its workforce,
Mortimer said that any worker who did not like the company's decisions could
take it to court. These public statements were too much for Taipo, who cancelled Mortimer's work permit, declaring
that his attitude had contributed to the 'lack of stability' in Wackenhut's labour relations. Unable to work in Mozambique any
longer, Mortimer retreated to South Africa. According to the Ministry's
release, Taipo welcomed the new approach taken by
van der Merwe. She told
him that the disturbed labour environment at
Wackenhut had arisen because the company failed to respect Mozambican
legislation, which she described as 'a fundamental condition for investment
in the country'. She stressed that her ministry 'is open to supporting
companies that prioritise the human factor, and
promote labour justice as a contribution to social
peace'. But Taipo is not simply going to accept van
der Merwe's word that
matters have improved in G4S. She recommended that the Labour
Inspectorate visit the company to check on the real situation there.
September
7, 2007 All Africa
The Mozambican Labour Ministry, through the Labour General Inspectorate, has fined the multinational
giant "G4S-Securicor Services Moçambique, Lda" with an amount equivalent to 730 minimum
statutory minimum wages in the country for hiring nine illegal foreign
workers. This follows a joint inspection carried out by the Labour Ministry with the Mozambican Police, and the
illegal workers were suspended immediately from work. According to a press
release from the Labour Ministry received by AIM on
Thursday, the fine amounts to 1,184,760 meticais
(about 46,000 USD), which is the maximum penalty provided for by the Mozambican
Labour Law. Current Labour
Law states that any illegal worker should be immediately suspended from their
duties and the offender fined with a sum equivalent from 10 up to 80
statutory minimum wages. The foreigner is suspended until his situation is
regularized. The current minimum wage in Mozambique is equivalent to 63 USD.
The illegal workers include Portuguese and South African nationals holding
positions of shift and project managers. In Mozambique, the G4S subsidiary,
Wackenhut, has also two separate disputes with its work force. One of these
concerns its failure to pay overtime for 11 years (1994-2005) and the second
is over unpaid severance pay for guards who were given notice after the US
Embassy refused to renew its contract with Wackenhut.
Namibia
Group 4
May 3, 2010 Namibian
ON the eve of Workers’ Day celebrated on Saturday, hundreds of NedBank and Group 4 Securicor (G4S) employees submitted
petitions to their respective managers. In a petition addressed to G4S
managing director Dries Kannemeyer, employees
called on the company’s management “to refrain from prolonging our suffering
but to commit to mutually acceptable solutions”. The employees claim they
have no medical aid or pension fund benefits. Other grievances are that
vacancies are allegedly not being advertised,
workers lack “proper contracts”, get “no salary increments” and lack job
descriptions. The security guards claim that there are no salary structures,
all management positions are occupied by whites and that there is no
affirmative action structure. The workers also allege that the armed response
unit is understaffed and that no union deductions are made. They gave the
company’s management seven days to respond to their grievances. Kannemeyer yesterday refused to comment. “I will not
speak to you on a Sunday. Don’t you honour a
Sunday? I will report you,” he said before he hung up the phone. In their
petition, addressed to NedBank MD Erastus Hoveka on Friday, 236 employees gave management five
working days to respond. Failure to do so would indicate union bashing.
According to Asnath Zamuee,
general secretary of the Namibia Financial Institutions’ Union (Nafinu), the workers of NedBank
“decided to stand up for their rights and say no to exploitative practices
which includes favouritism, nepotism and victimisation”. The employees further call on the
company’s management to reinstate the deduction of union membership fees and
sign a recognition agreement with the union. Hoveka
told The Namibian that he was on holiday until Wednesday and would respond
later.
Uganda
Kampala,
Africa
Group 4, Securicor
November
18, 2006 New Vision
THIRTEEN security guards with Group 4 Security Service were on Friday
charged with stealing sh723.4m. They appeared at Buganda Road Court and were
remanded in Luzira Prison until November 30. They
all denied the charge. Court heard that Joseph Bosco
Owenyi, John Sebunya,
Alice Amiya and Vincent Langol
on October 15 stole sh124m which was being transferred from Barclays Bank, Luwum Street to the main branch on Kampala Road. Court
also heard that Clarkson Odong, Richard Bidongo, David Wanyama, Edison Omule and David Karamagi stole
sh160m from Stanbic Bank which was in transit from Mityana to Bank of Uganda on October 11, 2006. State
prosecutor Addah Atuhairwe
told court that Standard Chartered Bank lost sh344.4m which had been
entrusted to Gideon Bwambale, Julius Muwanguzi and Monica Osuu. The
money was in transit from Standard Chartered Bank, William Street branch on
October 10. Atuhairwe said Martin Ocama stole sh95m which was being carried to Bank of
Uganda from Allied Bank in the old taxi park. Atuhairwe
said Police are still investigating the matter and asked court for time to
enable them complete their inquiries.
February 12, 2005 The Monitor
Since
the Monday theft of Shs700 million that was in transit from Stanbic bank, police has mounted a manhunt across the
border into Kenya and Tanzania. Police
suspect the Securicor Gray guards stole the money they were transporting in a
bullion van. This is the first heist involving a financial institution after
a long lull, and we can only hope it is not the tip of the robber's wedge. Unfortunately, the
private security firms that some banks hire to secure the money are proving
to be unreliable. Private security firms proliferated when the public lost
confidence in the ability of the regular police to secure their life and
property as the spate of crimes rose to unprecedented levels. The private
security firms filled the void by hiring former soldiers, paramilitaries, and
policemen without proper screening in some cases. We are now reaping the
fruits of this unsupervised recruitment. Early this year Police revealed that
private security organisations lead in commission
of crimes among the security groups. Of 187 cases of reported crimes that
were committed by security organisations, private
security groups committed 100, police 44 cases, UPDF 36 and prisons one case.
They committed mainly murder by shooting, robbery, theft, corruption and
bribery. Police said it would improve on investigations into the operations
of private security organisations. Uganda is not alone in this.
October
1, 2001
The director of operations in the Uganda Prisons Service, Mr. Moses Kakungulu, has proposed that the execution of convicts be
privatised if the death penalty cannot be
abolished. (New Vision/All African Global Media via COMTEX)
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