A Bulawayo-based private security company, Nokel (Pvt) Ltd, is planning to stretch its tentacles to other parts of the country as a way of boosting its customer base, an official has said. OWN CORRESPONDENT
In an interview with Southern Eye Business on Friday, Nokel finance and administration officer Artwell Katandika said plans were underway to open branches in Harare, Gweru, Beitbridge and Masvingo.
“We have quite a number of expansion projects on the pipeline and one of them is to open branches in areas such as Harare, Gwanda, Masvingo and Beitbridge. We have also opened a website to increase our visibility on the market,” Katandika said.
“At the moment we have branches in Gweru, Kwekwe, Zvishavane, Tsholotsho and Victoria Falls and we want to cover all provinces. We have invested in electronic and equipment side of security,” he added.
He said that business was steady during the first half of the year as they were operating at 80% capacity utilisation.
But Katandika expressed concern that security companies especially in Bulawayo, were being marginalised when it came to tendering processes, pointing out that Harare firms were being favoured at the expense of Bulawayo companies.
“We usually face some challenges when it comes to government tenders because sometimes we are sidelined in favour of Harare firms. We would like set the record straight that companies in Bulawayo have got capacity as well,” he said. He urged financial institutions to make funds available for huge capital projects.
Nokel was established in 2001 and recently it struck an open-ended partnership with a South African security entity, ATS Surveillance Solutions, to supply the local market with mobile surveillance equipment.
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The deal, clinched early this month, saw Nokel distributing and installing Wolf-Eye mobile surveillance units in the entire country where the Bulawayo firm is the sole agent.
