{UAH} Allan/Edmund/Pojim/WBK: KK’s gone public, security is private, the state is vanishing - Comment

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/KK-Security-gone-public-security-is-private-state-is-vanishing-/-/434750/3256306/-/o6ito2z/-/index.html

KK's gone public, security is private, the state is vanishing

Just over two weeks ago there was a story that didn't make the front pages of newspapers or set social media alight. It should have.

It was reported that KK Security, the Kenyan company that provides security services in seven countries, is considering listing on the stockmarket to help it expand.

That would be a first for an East African security company. KK, it was reported, has an annual revenue of more than Ksh100 billion ($100 million), and was said to be expecting increased business from the oil and gas industries in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

Nothing unusual there. Then we got into some truly eye-popping numbers. KK, it was said, employs almost 22,000 people.

The company was quoted as saying that Kenya has nearly 4,000 private security companies with more than 400,000 employees.

Of that number, only 110 are regulated by either the Kenya Security Industry Association or the Kenya Private Security Association. The new Private Security Act is expected to improve regulation.

At 400,000 employees, the Kenyan private security sector is four times bigger than the country's police, military, and prisons services combined.

The same picture is largely true for Uganda and Tanzania, and the skew is worse in crime-plagued countries like South Africa.

That the private security industry can be so much larger than the official sector, represents a significant shrinkage of the state.

If one adds the amount of money paid for private security services, it is certainly larger than governments' defence and security budgets.

Therefore, the largest defence expenditure in most of East Africa is in the private security industry, not on those old tanks and air force planes we see on Independence Day parades.

As with the case of KK, the growth of new businesses will create a bigger market for private security guards.

Another sector where the presence of the state has shrivelled is education. With private universities, and the opening up of state universities to private students, the overwhelming number of university students in the region are not on state scholarships. They are forking out the fees from their pockets.

In most of East Africa, you are several times more likely to die in a government hospital than in a private one.

The question is how all this will end. There is the view that when citizens are too independent of the state to which they pay taxes, and don't require any service from it, the quality of democracy deteriorates. They are not bothered enough to turn up to vote for quality candidates, leaving politics to be taken over by idiots and criminals.

‎But there is the equally compelling view that, for those who can afford it, private security is more stable. When the president is overthrown in a coup, your security guard will not run away because he was from the tribe of the big man as a soldier or police officer might.

And, though there is no definitive evidence for this, some believe that good private companies' security guards are less corrupt than the police and harder to bribe.

Whatever the case, a fundamental change in citizens' relationship with their governments is fully underway in East Africa.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa (mgafrica.com). Twitter@cobbo3

KK's gone public, security is private, the state is vanishing - Comment

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/KK-Security-gone-public-security-is-private-state-is-vanishing-/-/434750/3256306/-/o6ito2z/-/index.html

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