The City of Tshwane has plans in the pipeline to insource over 200 security guards in the 2025/2026 financial year, with potential expansion to hire at least 1 500 guards in 2026/2027.

The promises were made by Members of the Mayoral Committee (MMCs) from the EFF and ActionSA during a Workers’ Day gathering of security guards at Church Square in Pretoria’s CBD on Thursday.

Tshwane MMC for Environmental Affairs and Agriculture, Obakeng Ramabodu, also an EFF councillor, said: “We chose this day, which is Workers’ Day, to celebrate the pride of workers but what is important is to make sure we give proper update to the workers who have been waiting for insourcing.”

He was referring to the insourcing process initiated under former mayor Solly Msimanga, which resulted in the municipality hiring over 1 200 security guards.

The city’s initial plan for the first phase was to insource 1 500 security guards, following a council resolution to scrap private security contracts and employ 4 000 guards in-house under the Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD).

Ramabodu said the first phase was incomplete, falling short of the 1 500 target by over 200 security guards.

“We are completing that phase, but we are also looking into another phase that will be implemented after the 2025/2026 financial year.” 

He said the first phase would involve training security guards who were previously hired without adequate training, as well as equipping them with the necessary tools.

“We are saying Phase Two is going to happen in the next financial year (2026/2027) and not the financial year starting in July this year. What we are going to do now is to equip them with the necessary tools of trade.

“They were left there with jeans and a T-shirt on site without knowing what to do. That is why our infrastructure is under attack. That is why our substations are burning every week. That is why electricity is affected because the people that we have deployed to secure our infrastructure are not trained and don’t have the necessary equipment,” he said.

According to him, all political parties in the coalition government agree on implementing insourcing.

“We are pleased that the security personnel have decided to collaborate with this government. We are hopeful to bring on board another batch of 1 500 in the 2026/2027 financial year. We have only two financial years remaining before the elections. If we are lying, it means we will be held accountable at the election, and workers would have the right to punish us at the polls,” Ramabodu said.

Hannes Coetzee, Community Safety MMC, also an ActionSA councillor, explained that the current administration inherited 1 287 security guards, “but the challenge that we are sitting with there is that they are not trained”. 

“They don’t have proper uniforms. We need to make sure that they get proper training. We have appointed a deputy commissioner at the TMPD, and he is going to train them to be security guards,” he said.

Coetzee said trained guards will be deployed to manage the 540 sites established for them.

“We also need specialised people in the IT system and how the CCTV cameras work, because in some of the stations, we don’t need bodyguards or security guards. We need CCTV cameras,” he said.

rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za

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