Security guards take advantage of PSRA mobile registration unit

Dozens of security guards happily took advantage of the visit of the Private Security Regulation Authority’s (PSRA) mobile unit to Ocho Rios on Wednesday, ensuring that they complete their registration process.

The security personnel expressed their delight at the mobile initiative which prevented them having to travel to Kingston to register, which is an annual requirement in the profession.

“It’s quite good and quite convenient, you don’t’ have to leave and travel from far, wherever you are, to the city,” Wayne Dunkley, a security guard living in Claremont, St Ann, told The Gleaner. “I think it’s a good idea.”

Another guard, Anthony Campbell said, “The process is 100 per cent convenient” because the journey to Kingston has been eliminated for him.

Zavia Mayne, state minister in the Ministry of National Security, hailed the effort of the PSRA to reach out and meet security personnel to make the registration process easier for them, noting that there are now several avenues to facilitate registration.

“The PSRA has rolled out a number of initiatives which are geared at the improvement of our services and service delivery and overall efficiency of the authority,” Mayne noted.

“We’ve gone online with our renewal of licence for both companies and private security guards, we’ve established the Montego Bay offices. We recognise that with just one office in Kingston – in the modern dispensation it’s a little awkward, so we’ve decided to change that to the creation of the western offices and certainly through the mobile registration unit.

“I am very satisfied, I’m very pleased because I am convinced that through this medium we have certainly made our mark in the improvement of our services,” he added.

Executive director of the PSRA, Rick Harris, in disclosing that 80 persons on average register at each location that the mobile unit visits, said the overall goal is to modernise the organisation.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is this; in our ongoing thrust to modernise the PSRA and to improve compliance what we have done is to increase the channels by which people can access the services of the PSRA,” Harris said.

He added: “So what we are ensuring is that it is easy for guards, private investigators, security trainers and everybody who register with the PSRA to meet the compliance requirement and have access to the application for their licence.”