Private Security Companies in Ghana: How to Vet, Contract and Manage a Guard Contractor

Key takeaways

• Private security organisations in Ghana are licensed by the Ministry of the Interior under the Police Service (Private Security Organisations) Regulations, 1992 (LI 1571), and operate under Police supervision. Confirm the licence, then look past it.
• Guards have no powers beyond those of any citizen. Their value lies in deterrence, observation, response and reporting, and each of those can be specified and measured.
• Most guarding contracts in Ghana are sized by habit and priced by headcount. A risk assessment usually finds that the posts are in the wrong places, the numbers are wrong in both directions, and the supervision is nominal.
• The contract is the control. If it does not state post orders, training, supervision, reporting and penalties, the guard force will be managed by whoever shouts loudest.

Manned guarding is the largest line in most Ghanaian security budgets and the least scrutinised. S.G. Technologies does not supply guards, which is why organisations ask us to review the ones they have; this article is drawn from those guard force management reviews. It covers how to vet a private security company, what the contract should contain, and how to manage the force once it is in place. For how a consultancy differs from a guard company, see security consultants in Accra.

The legal position

Private security organisations in Ghana are licensed by the Ministry of the Interior under LI 1571, made under the Police Service Act. The regulations govern registration, the categories of service that may be offered, and Police oversight of the industry. Two practical consequences follow for the organisations that hire guards.

First, use a licensed provider, and check the licence rather than the letterhead. Second, understand what a guard is. Private security personnel are not police officers. They have no special powers of arrest, search or detention; they may act only as any citizen may. Their function is to deter by presence, to observe and report, to control access in accordance with the occupier’s rules, and to respond to incidents by raising the alarm and calling the Police. A contract that assumes more than that is a contract built on a misunderstanding.

Vetting a private security company

Beyond the licence, the questions that separate a serious provider from a supplier of bodies in uniform are these.

Recruitment and screening. How are guards recruited, what identity and background checks are made, are references taken, and is the Ghana Card verified? Ask to see the file of a guard currently deployed at another client’s site.

Training. What initial training does a guard receive before first deployment, how long is it, who delivers it and what does it cover? Is there site-specific induction? Is there refresher training, and how is it recorded? A guard who has never practised what to do when the alarm sounds will do the wrong thing when it does.

Supervision. How many supervisors per guard, how often do they visit each post, at what hours, and how is the visit evidenced? Unannounced night visits are the test; ask for the last month’s supervision records for a comparable site.

Turnover and welfare. Guard turnover in Ghana is high, and it is driven by pay, hours and conditions. Ask what guards are paid against the national minimum wage, what shift lengths are, whether the provider complies with the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651), and whether statutory contributions are made. A provider that underpays will deploy tired, resentful and transient guards, and your site will be the one that finds out.

Equipment and communications. Radios or phones, torches, incident books, uniforms, and for higher-risk sites, body-worn cameras. Who supplies, who maintains and who replaces?

Insurance. Public liability and employer’s liability cover in force, with certificates you have seen.

References. In your sector, with named contacts you may call. A bank, hospital or embassy reference means the provider has survived a demanding client’s scrutiny.

Incident record. Ask how many incidents the provider recorded across its sites last quarter and how they were handled. A provider with no incidents is not a provider with no incidents; it is a provider with no reporting.

Sizing the force: posts, not headcount

The most common finding in our guard force reviews is that the number of guards on a site was decided years ago, by somebody who has since left, on a basis nobody can now explain. The right basis is the risk assessment. It identifies the points that need controlling, the hours at which they need controlling, the response needed to a realistic incident, and the observation that electronic systems cannot provide. From that come posts, with post orders, and from the posts comes the headcount, including relief.

Two things typically emerge. The first is that some posts exist only because they always have, and can be replaced by access control or CCTV at lower cost and higher reliability. The second is that the posts that matter, usually the ones at night and at the perimeter, are under-resourced because the daytime reception post absorbed the budget. Rebalancing the force often costs nothing and improves protection. Our security risk assessment page describes how this fits into the wider review.

The contract: what it must contain

A guarding contract that can be managed has, at minimum:

• Post orders for every post: location, hours, duties, what to permit, what to refuse, whom to call, and what to record. Written, signed and kept at the post.
• Staffing standards: the number and grade of guards per post and shift, relief arrangements, and the maximum consecutive hours a guard may work.
• Training standards: initial training, site induction and refresher training, with the client’s right to see records.
• Supervision standards: minimum visit frequency per post, including at night, and the evidence of each visit.
• Reporting: daily occurrence book, incident reports within a defined time, monthly performance reports, and immediate escalation for defined events.
• Vetting standards: the checks the provider must make before deploying any guard to the site, and the client’s right to refuse or remove an individual.
• Equipment: what is supplied and who maintains it.
• Key performance indicators that can be measured from records: post coverage, punctuality, supervision visits completed, incidents reported on time, training current.
• Remedies: service credits or deductions for missed posts and unreported incidents, and the right to terminate for defined failures.
• Compliance warranties: licence maintained, labour law and statutory contributions complied with, insurance in force.
• Data protection: guards handle visitor registers and observe people; the contract should require compliance with the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) and set out who owns the records.

If the incumbent contract is a one-page letter with a monthly rate, the first management step is to replace it.

Managing the force

Audit against the contract, on a cycle. Monthly review of occurrence books and incident reports, quarterly test of post coverage and response, annual review of training and vetting records. Audit is what makes the KPIs real.

Test. Controlled tests of the guard force, agreed with the provider’s management and conducted safely, tell you what happens when someone tries to walk in, when the alarm sounds at 2 a.m., or when a delivery arrives without paperwork. They are the only way to learn whether post orders are followed rather than filed.

Meet the guards, not only the account manager. Guards know where the gaps are. A supervisor who asks them will hear about the light that has been out for a month and the gate that does not lock.

Integrate with the systems. Guards and electronic security should support each other: cameras cover what guards cannot see, guards respond to what cameras detect. A control room operator who cannot raise the gate guard, and a gate guard who cannot see the camera feed, are two halves of a system that is not working.

Manage the relationship. Guard force performance is a function of pay, welfare, supervision and respect. A client who treats the provider as a commodity gets commodity guarding. A client who pays a fair rate, insists on standards and reviews performance regularly gets a force that protects the site.

When to commission a guard force management review

A review by an independent consultant is worth commissioning when the contract is up for renewal, after an incident that the guards failed to prevent or report, when the budget is under pressure and the guarding line is the obvious target, or when the organisation cannot say with confidence what its guards actually do at 3 a.m. The review examines the risk basis for the posts, the contract, the provider’s compliance and performance, and the integration with electronic systems, and produces a costed recommendation that usually pays for itself within the year.

Because S.G. Technologies does not sell manpower, our advice on guard force size and performance is independent. If your guarding contract is due, or you suspect you are paying for posts that do not protect anything, request a review and we will scope it within one business day.