The relief guard reality: why a 24/7 site is not 2 guards.

The most expensive misunderstanding in South African security tender pricing. The NBCPSS gazette uses a 1.5× multiplier as a compliance baseline — but the operational reality is 3.4 to 3.6 guards for a true 24/7/365 post. Here is the math that nobody shows you, and what it costs to get it wrong.

The math that bankrupts new operators

A 24/7 single post needs 168 hours of coverage per week. The NBCPSS primary officer works 4 shifts × 12 hours = 48 hours. That means:

• One day-shift primary covers 48 of the 84 weekly daytime hours
• One night-shift primary covers 48 of the 84 weekly night-time hours
• Which leaves 72 hours per week uncovered — relievers, weekends, sick days, AWOL

The gazette's 1.5× multiplier captures the compliance minimum. In real-world rostering, a 24/7 post typically needs the equivalent of 4.0 to 4.5 guards when you account for the operational realities below.

What the gazette's 1.5× quietly leaves out

Source: BCEA leave provisions plus industry rostering norms. Your numbers may differ — but they are not zero.

How to actually budget for this

Use the gazette-aligned 1.5× multiplier as your compliance floor. Then add an "operational uplift" line in your overhead allocation — typically 10–15% on top of direct labour — to absorb the realistic leave and AWOL load.

If your overhead is sized properly (40% per the gazette default), this is usually already baked in. If you're running lean overhead at 25–30%, you need to lift it back to 40% or your roster will eat your margin from month two.

The sanity check that takes 30 seconds

For any 24/7 post you bid: divide the annual contract value by 168 (hours per week) × 52 (weeks) = your effective hourly rate. If that number is below R55/hr for Urban Grade C/D/E, your bid is structurally underpriced. Investigate before signing.

For a 24/7 post billed at R28,493 per month, the math is: R28,493 × 12 ÷ (168 × 52) = R39.13/hr — which barely clears the gazette's R33.67/hr Urban C/D/E hourly rate. Your cushion is the difference, and it has to absorb your overhead, your supervision, your transport, and your profit. There is no slack in this math.

What this means for tender-evaluation

If a client offers R20,000 per post per month for a 24/7 Urban Grade C/D/E site, they are offering you R45.78/hr — below the compliance floor for relievers, council levy, cleaning allowance, and statutory contributions combined. Your direct labour cost alone (R18,172) eats 91% of their offer. Three months in, you are funding their security service from your bank account.

This is the contract you decline. Not because you can't afford to do the work — but because you can't afford to do the work at that price. The discipline of saying no to bad bids is the single most profitable habit in this industry.