In March 2022, the National Bargaining Council for the Private Security Sector (NBCPSS) approved a health insurance benefits scheme for the sector following the signing of a collective bargaining agreement with employers and unions. Click here Affinity Health National Bargaining Council Private Security Sector Health Insurance for more info.

The Main Collective Agreement (MCA) requires all industry members to have access to quality private healthcare. To this end, the NBCPSS appointed Affinity Health, through an open tender process, to provide an integrated primary health service to ALL the employees in the Private Security Sector.

The benefits include chronic disease management and medication, doctor’s consultations, accidental hospital and casualty benefit and a hospital care plan. It also includes an HIV and TB Management Programme.  Even so, some companies use dirty tricks and unlawful methods to cheat security officers of their benefits including:

• • Deducting millions of Rands from the salaries of workers as part of the MCA but failing to pass these moneys over to the designated service provider, Affinity Health. “Lots of workers are turned away from clinics and doctors [because of this],” said Khumbulani Moyo, Chairperson of NBCPSS. Moyo said workers can’t be assisted with their medical needs because they are not registered even though they pay contributions every month.
• • Colluding with unscrupulous service providers. In this regard, the salaries of unsuspecting security guards are being deducted under the guise of providing them the same medical care benefits provided by Affinity Health, as per the MCA. For instance, there is evidence that a security company colludes with a healthcare service provider to coerce its employees to subscribe to the same company, which is in violation of the MCA as the service provider is not the designated service provider. The outcome of this fraud is kickbacks to the same security company that denies the workers quality healthcare.
• • Not deducting money for healthcare insurance thus leaving the workers exposed to catastrophic healthcare spending.

How big is the problem?

At least 30 000 security guards employed in the private security sector have been affected by the unauthorised deductions. More than R7.5 million per month is fraudulently deducted from the salaries of the affected private security guards. These money has not been transferred to the appointed service provider to benefit the workers.

How does this affect the security guards?

The workers don’t get the benefits at all despite their salaries being taken away every month. Not providing workers with the primary healthcare cover they fought so hard for exposes them to catastrophic spending.

Poorly paid workers are always at the risk of sinking even further into poverty because of the adverse effects of illness on their earnings and general welfare. Forcing workers to choose between buying food and paying for hospital care must come to an end; forcing workers to choose between paying for the education and clothing of their children and seeing a medical doctor must come to an end NOW.

And where the non-compliant security company is colluding with a service provider workers receive an inferior product than the one negotiated and agreed to in the Main Collective Agreement. In many instances many guards are turned away from health care facilities when seeking medical help, as these unscrupulous companies don’t provide them with membership cards to keep the lie that they are part of Affinity Health.

Furthermore, allowing unscrupulous service providers to flout collective agreements exposes these low-wage earners to catastrophic healthcare spending when such service providers fail to fulfil their promises. The NBCPSS have no enforceable contracts with such providers.

We are aware that many security companies do not register all their security officers with the Private Security Sector Provident Fund (PSSPF) to ensure that the lives of these workers and their families are protected from the catastrophic effects of loss of income by benefiting from better retirement, disability, death and funeral benefits.

In some cases, money is deducted for the PSSPF but not relayed to the fund, as required. A Limpopo-based security guard who has worked in the sector since 2008 and has worked for four companies, told the Daily Maverick that his former employers “…deducted money for UIF and pension but when you checked on the system you found out you are not registered. When we raised these issues, we were victimised,” said the man, who joined a new employer in 2021.