Why private security guards in Uganda should be made part of national public security architecture

By Simon Peter Opolot - Okwalinga

One of the basic functions of a state is to guarantee and provide security and protection to her citizens.

But when this fundamental function is seemingly relegated and left in the hands of private and profit-motivated security companies, then the State is either in the verge of absconding from her cardinal duty of providing public security or the role itself is about to be overtaken by criminally minded and selfish individuals.

This in essence makes the citizens susceptible to all sorts of threats emanating from inadequate or lack of professional security training often associated with the private security guards in the country.

Uganda today has got over 37,000 personnel employed as private security guards operating within the country, excluding those in Iraq, Afghanistan and the entire Middle East countries. These large numbers of private security guards personnel operating inside Uganda are equivalent to 52 military infantry battalions.

With no centralised command and control mechanisms, this can, in a foreseeable future, turn out to be a real public security threat. The country has already witnessed situations where private security guards have turned their guns to the clients they are supposed to protect. The same individuals have oftentimes connived with criminals to robe their clients large sums of money.

The times we are now in as a country, are biblical times. Those where trust and honesty are rare yet mistrust and mischief, let alone betrayal are common to our daily political, social and economic transactions! Therefore, to entrust our Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) dearly earned public peace and security in the hands of ill-trained private security guards amounts to betrayal by those constitutionally mandated to have a monopoly for the use and application of weapons of violence. The recent appointment of Gen Henry Tumukunde as the Minister for Security notwithstanding, the Government should be aware that the national security situation is awash with threats both conventional and unconventional.

This will require the deployment of all our instruments of national power to efficiently predict, detect, deter and circumvent any amount of such threats. This is so because youth unemployment, for instance, is on the increase with more than 83% of the 30,000 annual graduates lacking meaningful employment. Further, Uganda has transcended to become an attractive centre of convergence for global commercial, economic and political interests.

This makes us prone to all sorts of security/military threats, stemming from actions, motives and competing interests of foreign actors and their local collaborators.

Consequently, defence and security strategists alike will agree that our course of history can be altered through the choices we make as individuals in the governance processes.

Hence, analysis of those situations where order is absent, or else, where disorder is encouraged by those who believe that it will be to the advantage of those on whose behalf they are acting, becomes a necessity for all national security architects. Over time, it is the behaviour, actions and interests of the private security guards, among other reasons, that has now warranted the demand and proposal to make and put all private security firms under a public, private partnership (PPP) arrangement for a better, professional and accountable command and control mechanisms within the ministry of public security, as the Uganda Police Force maintains and keeps law and order on the other hand.

A feasibility study as per the PPP, Act, should, therefore, precede to look into the best way to actualise this partnership. In fact, the roles exhibited by these private security firms are no longer those which are purely private but rather of a public security nature. This proposal will ultimately enhance professional training and subsequently improves the meagre salary earnings of private security guards and yet on the Government side adds onto the non-tax revenue collections, besides revamping into action of the ministry of public security, which had almost become ‘a cross-over' entity.

This proposal should, therefore, have been implemented yesterday, because as a Government, this is our guardian obligation in line with the divinely nurtured guardian ideology that requires all persons to practice the sacrifice of self for the service of others in the daily application of our abilities and talents.     

The writer is a security strategist and the founder of the Guardian Ideology