Cedar Integrated Security: Security Industry and Specialized Security Services in Ghana

Interview with Dr George Hackman Otoo, CEO of Cedar Integrated Security

How would you assess the private security sector in Ghana? What are the latest trends?

The private security sector in Ghana is relatively underdeveloped but has a lot of potential. Now, the minimum wage or even the wages for professionals within the industry are low. Interestingly, this is changing, and people are now beginning to have the belated realization that “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” So, they are paying significantly more, and the sector is looking very attractive. One observation about the private security sector in Ghana is that the coordination or the collaboration between the state and the private security organizations, PSOs, is not adequate. In other civilized jurisdictions, their focus is on public private partnership, but here, that is not the case. This is costing us because we share the opinion that the PSOs provide meaningful support services to the state. In the police service, for instance, we have always complained about the police to civilian ratio. Presently, the Minister put the police to civilian ratio at 1:777. Although, the reality on the ground shows otherwise. Taking that figure as fact, why can we not allow the PSOs to provide administrative support to the police officers so that we can have more police officers on the beat performing core police functions? Performing administrative functions is not rocket science. If we have graduates joining the private security organizations, why can they not perform these functions for the police? Yet, we continue to complain about unemployed graduates and we keep the police to do administrative functions rather than being on the streets performing their duties. This is sickening, and it is worrying.

Is this situation in Ghana the same in the rest of West Africa?

Yes, it is similar. To some extent, it is historical. Private security organizations are now emerging in most West African countries. There is a certain perception of the private security organizations. But, these professionals have expertise that could undoubtedly help the police and other mainstream security organizations.

What activities are you involved with in the sector? What services do you render?

We have people with considerable skills in the industry and it is rare to find such diverse specializations under one roof. This separates us from our competitors. Our approach to what we do is hands on.

We provide bespoke security solutions. We provide specialized forensic investigations, polygraph examination, forensic document examination, and brand protection or counterfeit investigation for companies. Interestingly, we also started a new division for technical surveillance countermeasures which is anti-eavesdropping services. We offer this service to individuals and organizations to protect their privacy. The sad thing is that, in this day and age, many firms are using IP phones, people are using all sorts of means to surreptitiously obtain your vital information. Your information is your source of power so once they get that, they can defeat you. It is new, but it is going quite well.

In these areas, what are some examples of some of the major works you have been doing?

For example, with polygraphs, we do a lot of work for mining companies. We do pre-employment screening which is part of integrity testing. If you are recruiting someone for a sensitive position, that person needs to pass this test before the company will engage them. We are quite satisfied with our results.

Why mining companies? What are their requisites?

The position they are going to occupy is sensitive. The industry or the environment itself is also quite attractive. You will be seeing things and you will be facing situations where, if your integrity is weak, you might succumb. So, the mining companies found it necessary that for certain key positions, we conduct this pre-employment integrity testing before they engage that person.

Is this situation the same with banking or the government?

Unfortunately, only the mining companies are utilizing our services at this stage. Very soon, other companies will come on board.

Is this due to the fact that they are often foreign companies and they have a higher level of security requirements?

Most of the mining companies are foreign owned. They know about this service and they appreciate the importance of polygraph and integrity testing. Most of the local companies do not understand what really goes into polygraphs. If you do not respect something, it cannot be a blessing to you, so you would not engage that service.

What other challenges do you face in the industry?

Some of the challenges that we have in the industry are that we do not have a regulatory authority for the private security organizations. This is one of our major concerns. We operate under LI-1571 and LI-1579 that date back to 1979. That regulatory framework is unable to address our present security concerns. It is past time to introduce new legislative documents to regulate private security because times have changed. Another challenge is that society has an incorrect perception about the security sector. They have the perception that security as a profession is meant for people in lower status categories. So, if they find out that you are educated, and they ask what you do, and you are in security, then they take a second look. They do not really know what goes into security. Because they do not know, and they do not appreciate the sector, they do not engage the services of the private security organizations. Concerning the professionals that we have in the industry, most of them are also unprofessional because they have not been properly trained. In other jurisdictions where there is a proper regulatory body, all security guards must go through a minimum form of training before they are deployed. Because we do not have that kind of system in this country, everyone does their training arbitrarily. We have a consultant here now working on our training model for us. We are customizing it to meet our local requirements and where we need to cut, we will cut and where we need to change, we will change. Most firms do not do that. Garbage in will produce garbage out.

Are you more involved with intelligence than security, then? Intelligence comes from someone that has this level of tools and training.

The challenge we have is that if you look at the sub region, there are only one or two institutions providing security. When you look at the model or the content of what goes into the course, they are talking about something that has lost touch with reality. We would like to have a proper security college so that if you are a police officer and you want to upgrade yourself, you can take core courses that will have a direct, positive impact on what you do. For instance, you can go to the college and learn about economic crime management, forensic investigations, or cybercrime. I tried to engage a university here to see if we could have a collaboration to run this. What I am talking about is too professional and they are more concerned with academia, so they could not support such a collaboration, and I understand.

What are some of your success stories?

On a polygraph case we did in Nigeria for a bank, a woman gave out a loan, unauthorized, that was never paid back and became a bad debt. My colleague and I were engaged to go and investigate that case. Unfortunately, the client gave notice to the suspect, and the suspect took an antidepressant drug. Her body language was telling us one thing, but the results we had on our machine told us something else and exonerated her. But, that is why we call it “poly.” We do not use only one factor to determine the result. I was not satisfied. We then surprised her, and they called the woman for us again, without notice. We conducted a second test and the results were very different from what we had seen the last time. She showed clear signs of deception. She admitted to the offense and we left it with the company to take administrative action. For me, that was worth more than having a thousand dollars in my hand because it gives me fulfillment that what I thought is exactly what they got. A few months ago, we were at a mining company in the Ashanti region, and explosives were found that the company was not producing. They engaged us to investigate these explosives. They had some names, we did the tests, and we then confirmed that they were the employees that had been involved.

Now, some companies prefer to go directly to you rather than to the police. Can you explain why?

For instance, if you take a document to the police forensic lab for examination, they do not work quickly. It will take a long time for you to get the results. The credibility of the results is also another issue. Some banks realize that. This is unacceptable, so they would rather engage somebody who can give them swift, credible results, and we have been doing that for them for some time now and they are very satisfied.

What is your international exposure? Where do you work outside Ghana?

We carry out various projects outside of Ghana. Last year, we did a project for Perseus mine at Sissingué in Côte d’Ivoire. We also worked for another client at Mako in Senegal. They were a nice set of projects because we were with the mine from the beginning. It was interesting to see ourselves being part of a great thing that was happening. We work also in Sierra Leone with Koidu, which is a diamond mining company. We are also in Togo doing intelligence work. In Burkina, we are involved with emergency evacuation. We have quite a strong presence in other West African countries.

Looking to the future, the medium term of two to three years’ time, what would you like the company to have achieved?

Our short-term vision is to have Cedar Integrated Security become the preferred vendor for specialized security services. We want to be a household name. Anyone looking for a credible security company to provide specialized services and diverse security will come to us for a one stop solution.

What are your competitive advantages?

Our company is centered on our people, policies, and procedures. We have people with considerable skills in the industry and it is rare to find such diverse specializations under one roof. This separates us from our competitors. Our approach to what we do is hands on. You would never find directors of big security firms on the ground making sure things are going well. Our clients tell us that they like our approach and they like the way we come and make sure things are going the way they should be. We have competent employees, and we know they are doing the right thing, but you can never be too careful. Another competitive advantage is that we have strategic alliances. We have certain alliances with other good companies that complement what we do. If we need to provide a service and we realize that we do not have all the in-house capabilities, because of these strategic alliances, we can bring in somebody to fill the gap and we are able to ensure that we can provide a professional service that will meet the client’s expectation. The next point might not be a plus for us, but we are unashamedly ethical. We believe in doing the right thing and we are also environmentally inclined. If we need to provide a service and we realize that what you are doing will bring harm to the environment, we will not support it and we will walk away. For example, a small-scale mining company producing gold called us in to provide some services to them. We looked at their operation and the way that they operated, and we realized that they were causing harm to the water body. They were polluting the water with chemicals because they did not care about taking steps to ensure that they minimized the pollution level. Why would we want to support them? Why would we want to offer them protection to do something that is wrong, and which will cause harm to the environment?

What message do you have about your company and your business for Ghana and the world?

People tend to think that Ghana is peaceful and calm. But, I have a different opinion because of what I see. The warning signs are there. I am not unnecessarily creating fear or panic. Our borders have been opened wide, and there is an influx of neighboring people who have gone through terrible situations and do not care. If we look at the current criminal statistics, incidents of violent crimes are rising. Because we do not keep statistics accurately or share with the public domain, we do not see it. But, because of my network and what my company does, we know. It is time for us to expect the unexpected and we should not take things for granted. What used to be the case 20 years ago will not continue to be so. Times are changing, and it is time we also changed our attitude to address the challenges in this sector.

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