To vet a security company before you sign, verify its PSIRA company registration, confirm the officers assigned to your site are individually registered and graded, read a sample set of post orders, meet the supervisor who will run your site, and see a real occurrence book and monthly report. Then visit the operation. Anything a provider will not show you before signing is unlikely to improve afterwards.
Most security contracts in South Africa are signed on the strength of a proposal document and a price. That is the wrong order. The proposal tells you what a provider says it does; a site visit and a document check tell you what it actually does. This guide sets out exactly what to ask for, what to look at, and the red flags that should stop a signature.
Why Vetting Matters More Than the Quote
The cost of choosing the wrong guarding provider is rarely the monthly fee. It is the stock that goes missing, the no-show on a Friday night, the incident nobody documented, and the months spent managing a provider instead of your operation. A cheaper contract that fails on any of those costs multiples of what it saved. Vetting is the cheapest insurance available, and it takes a week or two.
The Document Check: What to Ask For Before You Sign
- PSIRA company registration verified on the official portal, matched to the exact legal entity on the contract. PSIRA publishes both a business verification and an individual verification tool for exactly this.
- Individual officer registration for the guards who will actually work your site, graded for their posts.
- Proof of insurance relevant to the risk you are handing over.
- A written site-specific proposal produced after an actual site assessment, not a template with your name inserted.
- Draft post orders for your site, or a real set from a comparable one.
- The supervisor structure and escalation chain, with names and ratios.
- Contract terms covering notice, cancellation, annual escalation and what happens on a missed shift.
The Site Visit: What to Insist on Seeing
A proposal can describe anything. A visit shows you whether it exists. Ask to see the following, and treat reluctance as an answer in itself.
The control room or operations centre
Is it staffed right now, or only when clients visit? Ask how after-hours escalation works at 02:00 on a Sunday and who answers. Ask to see the log of the last week of activity.
Training and vetting records
Ask how officers are vetted before deployment and ask to see current records. Our five-point vetting checklist sets out the checks that should happen before any guard starts a first shift.
Post orders for a comparable site
Post orders are the instruction set your guards actually work to. Generic post orders mean generic guarding. See our post orders template for South African sites for what a proper set contains.
Supervision on the ground
Ask who the supervisor for your site would be, how many sites they cover, how often they visit, and whether visits are logged. A supervisor covering twenty sites is an administrative title, not oversight.
Real reporting
Ask for a genuine occurrence book page and a monthly report from a live client, with identifying details redacted. You are looking for whether incidents are recorded in operational detail or summarised into something meaningless.
Validating a Provider for a Mine or Industrial Site
Industrial and mining operations need everything above plus a few things specific to the environment. Ask how Mine Health and Safety Act induction is handled before officers take post, how access and movement control works across multiple gates with heavy contractor traffic, and how the full perimeter is patrolled rather than a convenient section of it.
Ask specifically how losses are detected, not just guarded against. Diesel, copper cable and commodities disappear gradually, and the difference between a capable and an inadequate provider is whether the pattern gets noticed in week one or month six. For the wider picture, see our guide to mining security in South Africa and what mining security actually costs.
Red Flags That Should Stop a Signature
- A price well below the market range with no explanation of what has been removed.
- Reluctance to show post orders, reports or training records.
- No named supervisor, or a supervisor covering an implausible number of sites.
- Vague answers on relief cover and what happens when a guard does not arrive.
- A PSIRA registration that does not match the entity on the contract.
- A quote produced without a site assessment.
On pricing specifically, use the market range as a sense check rather than a target. Our guide on how to compare security company quotes covers reading quotes like for like, and what manned guarding costs in 2026 sets out the current ranges.
A Practical Vetting Timeline
- Days 1 to 3: site assessment booked and completed, written proposal requested.
- Days 4 to 6: PSIRA verification, insurance and document check.
- Days 7 to 10: site or operations visit, meet the proposed supervisor.
- Days 10 to 14: reference checks with two or three comparable clients, then decide.
Put Us Through the Same Checks
Run every check in this guide on Bolwa Security Services. We will provide PSIRA documentation, sample post orders, the supervisor structure and a written site-specific proposal promptly after a free site assessment.