By Yero S. Bah
A retired Lieutenant Colonel (Lt.Col.) of the Gambia Armed Forces (GAF) who now runs a private security outfit has lamented the impacts of heavy taxation and other regulations on their private security business.
Speaking to this medium, ex-Lt. Col. Lamin Gano, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Five Star Security Company Limited, said the plethora of government regulations and taxes hinder the progress of the private security sector in the Gambia, pointing out that there are countless yearly taxes levied against private security companies, whilst certain key trainings and capacity building of guards are strictly prohibited by the laws of the Gambia.
The former Aide-de-Camp to former President Yahya Jammeh, and ex-Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Gambian army, argued that his security sector experience triggered his motivation to set up the Five Star Private Security Ltd. to purely put into practice the knowledge gained from his military professional career over a period of 16 years with the Gambian military, where he underwent several training programmes in countries like Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and the United Kingdom, and on peacekeeping missions such as in Sierra Leone and DR Congo.
The retired senior officer said looking at the current private security sector, his company came into being to address four issues, to wit: creation of employment for the youth folks; improve on the working conditions of the private security guards; provide quality employment opportunities; and minimize the working conditions of guards from 12 hours to just 8 hours daily, with the target of providing 1000 jobs for youths.
“We introduced the eight hours working for private security guards in this country,” ex-Lt.Col.Gano maintained, citing his company to be among the first private security companies to be registered under the new democratic dispensation following the fall of the dictatorial regime of Yahya Jammeh in the 2016 presidential elections.
Gano attributed the root causes of the poor working conditions of private security guards and salaries to the “general low salaries” situation, singling out government of the Gambia as “the biggest culprit” in regard that. He also regarded Gambia as one of the countries paying “the lowest salaries” in the world. “So, the rest of the employers emulate government in paying low-salaries to workers,” he claimed.
The Five Star Security boss explained that joining the private security sector is not a bad thing to do, reasoning that now his company and few others actually pay their security guards D3000 per month whilst working hours have been curtailed to just eight (8) hours instead of twelve (12) hours.
He, however, posited that for the private security companies to be able to pay better salaries to their personnel, their clients need to augment what they pay for the provision of a private security guard by the employers; that government needs to do away with the endless tax system, or at least, give tax probations to private investors in the area for companies to consolidate economic might before they are taxed.
The former Lt. Col. further said when it comes to training of private security guards, the state prohibits any form of training by the private companies but recruits must be trained by the Gambia National Police Service for two or three weeks. He noted that these state restrictions hamper their capacity building programmes for their private security men and women.
Gano again,“There is an Act of the National Assembly which prohibits private security entities from conducting trainings for their guards.” He said most of the private security companies are in place to purely make money whilst few are into professionalism and are security experts in the field. He observed that crimes such as theft and burglary are now rampant in the Gambia, and that had increased the demand for their (private security) services since the advent of the “new Gambia”.
However, to end all the hurdles, Gano recommended that government needs to relax some of the regulations; lessen the heavy taxes levied on them such as the registration of private security companies which costs D50,000 with yearly license renewal of the same amount; the paying for a trade license of D30,000 yearly, to Municipalities or Area Councils; the 15% social security; the procurement of the GPPA certificate of D25,000 as well as the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) policy. He disclosed that on a yearly basis, an investor in private security sector pays nothing less than D350,000 to D500,000 on various taxes. “The government is strangling us the private security companies in this country,” he decried.
The former senior military officer is of the strong view that, the solution to all the aforementioned challenges is for the Gambia government to forego some of these endless charges for a certain number of years before companies are charged, or alternatively, “reduce them so as to facilitate employment opportunities for citizens”.
