Minister Kania defends cancellation of private security firms' licenses

Muhamad Matovu

The state minister for internal affairs Mario Obiga Kania has defended the cancellation of licenses of private security companies that do not meet the minimum standards of operation.

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 of over 40 security companies.

Kania said many private security companies do not prioritise the general welfare of their employees including paying them 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...obviously you expect some problems," he noted.

He emphasised 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 they are deployed.

“I think we should get more closely involve in their training, there is minimum standards of training,” he said.

But Muwanga Kivumbi, the shadow minister for Internal Affairs said it was long overdue for police to evoke licenses of some of these security firms.

“I don’t know why this government take ages to react. We had done a research and discovered that out of 113 security firms only 84 were meeting the minimum primary conditions that are permissible for one to operate a security firm," he said.