Security guards march for fair treatment

The Citizen

11-07-2025

The Security Officers and Cleaners Alliance (SOCA) recently marched from the old Marabastad Depot to Tshwane House in protest over nearly a decade-long insourcing delays.
The march came after the Tshwane metro announced that 1 283 municipal workers would be employed by the municipality.
The metro recently inducted the first 100 cleaners at the Ou Raadsaal earlier this month.
The municipal workers currently employed by outsourced companies will now be employed by the metro. This means they will receive benefits associated with working for the city, including group scheme coverage, a 13th cheque, pension fund contributions, medical aid subsidies, and housing allowances.
SOCA members consist of more than 2 000 guards and cleaners who have been seeking to be insourced into the metro since 2018.
The metro at the time resolved to employ 4 000 guards directly, but to date, only phase 1, the employment of 1 302, has been completed. The project was then scrapped.
The group met with members of the Mayoral Committee before the insourcing announcement at Church Square on Workers' Day.
The guards, however, say they are fed up with delays and false promises.
'As we speak right now, we are security officers who have been left out of the process, and we felt that the process was not fair. We are demanding that the city treat us fairly. We are playing a vital role in the City of Tshwane, safeguarding the assets and infrastructure of the city,' SOCA chairperson Joshua Modau said.
The additional phases, which were scrapped, included Phase 2: 1 500 officers for the financial year 2021/22 and Phase 3: 1 000 officers for 2022/23.
'They [MMCs] came to us on May 1 at Church Square, and promised they would look into our issue.'
Modau said it seemed they were waiting for the budget to be approved.
'When the budget gets approved, and we try to engage with them, we get stories.
'They are playing political tactics so that we don't understand, and we are kept out of the loop. We are saying now, get your house in order, because these MMCs are going around promising this and that, I'm not sure if it's politically motivated or what, so we took it upon ourselves to march and make sure our demands are met,' Modau said.
Spokesperson Hlengiwe Ngwenya said the guards are tired of dealing with private companies where they are subjected to mistreatment.
'We're tired of these private companies; they don't pay us on time. We don't care for mafias and their threats; we are the ones on the ground working and not them. Right now, I'm not working; they've fired me because I'm a comrade, and that's fine because that won't change,' Ngwenya said.
Ngwenya said the higher-ups would be in for a shock during the next elections should their long-standing plight not be resolved.
The security guards demanded to hand over their memorandum to either the Mayor, Dr Nasiphi Moya, or Community Safety MMC, Hannes Coetzee.
MMC for Corporate and Shared Services, Kholofelo Morodi, accepted the memorandum on behalf of the Mayoral Committee as Moya and Coetzee were both unavailable.
During her address to the rowdy crowd, Morodi assured the guards the committee is working to resolve the issue, but the processes take time.
'I want to make it clear that we're not saying vote for us and we'll insource you. We want to insource because insourcing is part of ending exploitation. It's part of doing the right thing and building internal capacity. We came into government in October, and the first thing we did was start that process of building internal capacity.'
Morodi said they want to insource different kinds of workers, not just security guards.
'We've said we wanted to insource cleaners and have started with that first 100.
'We said we want to insource guards as well, and during the coalition with the DA, we began that, but it only started a new kind of exploitation whereby we had untrained and unarmed guards, putting lives in danger,' Morodi said.
Morodi said the insourced guards still have to undergo processes that will ensure they are equipped to defend themselves and the metro.
She added that when those processes are completed, the metro will begin looking into absorbing the rest.
The crowd wanted to know when that would be.
Morodi empathised with the crowd's grievances, insisting that this too is not a fight that is new to her.
'We said that we are going to sort out the first batch that was improperly insourced in 2021, that is what we are doing.
'What we don't want is to insource, and you are stuck again and at risk. I can't lie to you now and say we are going to insource you immediately, it's a struggle, it's not easy, but we will insource, have confidence in us,' Morodi said.
The group has given the metro 14 working days to respond to its memorandum or face further action.
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