The State Minister for Internal Affairs Mario Obiga Kania has defended the cancellation of Licenses of private security companies that do not meet the standards of operation noting that they have refused to comply with the standards of operating guidelines.
After an incident that happened last week when a security guard shot and killed one of the proprietors of Hickory bar and restaurant Arnold Ainebyoona Mugisha police reacted by cancelling licenses for over 40 security companies.
Kania said many private security companies do not prioritize the general welfare of their employees including paying little salaries among others and yet they have guns.
“Some of them do not pay their people, the general message is welfare, they don’t take care of the welfare of these people, this is an armed person, you are not taking care of his welfare, you over deploy him in an area, he is probably not properly trained obviously you expect some problems,” he noted.
He emphasized that they are going to amend and improve on the operating guidelines of private security companies to make it mandatory for any company to fully involve police in the training of their security guards before deployed in order to ensure efficiency.
“I think we should get more closely involved in their training, there are minimum standards of training,” he said.
However, the shadow Minister for Internal Affairs also Member of Parliament Butambala County Muwanga Kivumbi Muhammad noted that it is long overdue for police to evoke licenses of some of these security firms.
He added that some of these companies have been doing such a sensitive business without basic requirements. “I don’t know why this government take ages to react, we had done a research that over 113 security firms only 84 were meeting the minimum primary conditions that are permissible for one to operate a security firm and now if they have disqualified 44, we still have so many of them without a training manual that is connected to the work they do,” he said.