Lack of Funds and Poor Welfare
It is believed that the issue of funding is very critical for the
functionality of private security companies. It is one of the areas that
have encouraged unhealthy rivalry and competition amongst private
security companies. This is because in an effort to keep afloat in the
security market economy, some of the private security companies have
reduced their market worth by accepting contracts requiring the payment
of less than ₦10,000 or $28.6 US dollar per month as guard’s salary
thereby depriving others of an expected potential profitable contract.
This is a confirmation of Ekhomu (2005) and Abrahamsen and Williams
(2005), who observed that in spite of high cost of living, many security
guards earn salaries as low as ₦6,000 or $17.1 US dollar per month.
This is not healthy for the growth of the private security sector. The
result is that some of the security guards in such companies end up
engaging in criminal activities in order to augment their pay. This has
also resulted in the bad image associated with the activities of private
security companies, and most trending reason that majority of the public
have great disdain and reservation in the participation of PSCs in crime
control in the country.