Political instability keeps security companies busy
JAKARTA (JP): Security companies have mushroomed in the capital amid the economic instability and political tension weighing heavily on the minds of most city residents.
The companies, which mostly charge their clients in U.S. dollars, provide a range of services, from e-mail security bulletins warning clients to avoid certain areas of the city because of the possibility of violence to designing contingency plans ahead of the elections.
Employing professional investigators, former police and military members, the companies main clients are multinational companies.
The director of a Hong Kong-based security company which opened a branch here in 1995, said that besides his company at least five other world-renowned security firms had opened branches here over the past four years.
"They are Kroll, Guardian, Control Risks, Pinkerton's and AGI. This is excluding us," the executive, who asked for anonymity, told The Jakarta Post at the Regent Hotel on Friday evening.
The director said his security company currently had some 80 multinational firms as clients, a sharp rise over the 12 multinational firms it served in 1995.
The multinational firms make up 99 percent of the company's total clients, he said, insisting the Post not publish the name of his firm.
The company's branch here has 34 employees, including two former members of the Australian police's counterterrorism unit, a former aviation officer for the Hong Kong police, at least three former members of the Hong Kong special police force and eight bodyguards.
"We have strong links with intelligence officers, the military and the police here to help us with updated information," he said.
The company began e-mailing bulletins to its clients during the 1997 general election.
Also present at the Regent Hotel on Friday were the firm's president and a technical adviser on contingency plans.
The firm was responsible for the evacuation of 375 people from one company during the May 1998 riots, the company's president said.
"We anticipated the (May) riots after the government announced it was trying to raise fuel prices. We gave crash briefings beforehand to companies here," said the president, who is a former aviation officer.
He said that in the case of the November riots, his security firm told multinational companies beforehand to take a holiday on Nov. 13, the day 15 people were killed.
"The embassies here and our client companies asked us why were we sending their people home. We told them that we expected something big to happen. It did."
The director said that if a multinational company wanted security services, its corporate security department would contact a security firm's overseas headquarters, which would then assign its Jakarta branch to provide the services.
He said his branch on Jl. Belitung I in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, charged hourly rates for the protection of VIPs, CEOs or company executives.
"For one bodyguard, it's US$20 for one hour and minimum usage is four hours. If the bodyguard is needed for a day, a week or a month, different rates apply," the director said.
The president said that if a person was facing a high-level of threat, he would need a team of people to closely guard him.
"It could go as high as $600 and upwards a day," he said.
The technical adviser said preparing a contingency plan took between two to three days for a large organization and just one day for a small organization.
"This includes finding a safe place where the employees can be moved to. The plan is also about exhaustive surveys of certain areas and routes which will be used to reach that safe place," the adviser said.
"It's a case-by-case situation. It could mean not taking the toll roads, but different routes to reach that safe place or the airport or just going out of the city."
Pinkerton's, a 149-year-old security company with 14 branches across Asia, has seen the number of its clients here rise by at lest 300 percent since last year's May riots. Most of its clients are multinational companies seeking contingency plans for any future unrest.
The general manager of the local Pinkerton's branch, Jeremy Reynolds, said that his office, opened four years ago in the Menara Dea building on Jl. Mega Kuningan Barat, had 15 technical advisers working on contingency plans requested by dozens of multinational companies.
Jeremy said that for a big organization with several branches nationwide, a survey of locations would take at least two weeks at a cost of about $1,600 per day.
"A big plan takes at least a week to write. Clients include chemical and oil companies. Pinkerton's handles 30 to 40 local companies here," Jeremy told the Post by phone. (ylt)