Yesterday, a vehicle of a private security firm was attacked near Rinas International Airport. The money truck was on its way to the airport with a unknown amount of cash belonging allegedly belonging to BKT Bank. The armed robbers, how allegedly stole around €2 million, have not yet been apprehended.
The robbery comes one day after statements made by Minister of Interior Affairs Saimir Tahiri during a round table discussion about the security business. Minister Tahiri criticized private security firms for not paying their employees according to minimum wage standards:
Private security still doesn’t have the role that it needs to have. There are 2000 objects that are under your protection. During this time I have noticed problems that aren’t small. Your work force mainly consists of older and unpaid men. Today a private security guard is paid 40% of the payment that is declared. Today the State Police has 8,700 on the ground. You have more guards than the State Police, but your contribution is zero. The 9,000 security guards have to be a force to improve security. It is intolerable that there are companies that did not fulfill the duties they have. There are criminal cases about which the State Police is notified 11 minutes late.
The criticism of Minister Tahiri is remarkable, because the government itself, through its public procurement procedures, is one of the largest funder of the private security industry. If indeed the Minister has knowledge of maladministration in certain companies, he has all the right to exclude those companies from future tenders. In fact, these procedures are in place in order to guarantee that only bona fide companies take part in the tender.
As Exit has written before, the behavior of private security firms in public procurement procedures is highly suspect, and is most certainly an indication of illegal cartels. But rather than investigating this matter properly, and making sure that tenders to private security firms are legally sound, Minister Tahiri has asked the private security business merely to improve the guards’ working conditions.
