This is the latest official response from G4S, following complaints to British Gas who use G4S for meter reading.
In this response G4S admits to providing:
- security arrangements for some illegal Israeli settlement activity
- security systems at Israel’s checkpoints
- Prison and police security
G4S was formed in 2004 as a result of the merger between the British company Securicor and the Danish company Group 4 Falck. Prior to the merger, Group 4 Falck acquired a company in Israel (then called Hashmira) which carried out a number of “protective services” to Israeli settlements in the West Bank region. The CEO of Group 4 Falck made a statement in 2002, stating that the group felt the contracts were not in line with the company’s policies and that Hashmira would be exiting the contracts which protected the perimeter of the settlements.This was completed in 2002.
In 2010, press interest gained momentum with accusations that Group 4 Falck (by this time G4S) had not delivered on its promise to exit the contracts. This was not the case as Group 4 Falck had exited the contracts as promised. The services being provided in 2010 could not be compared to those provided prior to 2002 – they were much reduced by that time.
The current services provided in the West Bank area are summarised below:
▪ provision of a small number of security officers within retail and banking outlets
▪ monitoring of home security systems
▪ security systems maintenance at a prison, a police station and at a small number of checkpoints along the barrier – G4S provides security systems installation and maintenance services only (for example, intruder alarms, CCTV cameras, access control equipment) as part of broader, national contracts held with the Israeli Government. We do not make any decisions regarding prisoners, are not involved in the prison or policing regime and have no interaction with prisoners at all – we merely service and fix the security equipment in these locations
We have said publicly that we will exit from those systems maintenance contracts at the earliest opportunity when the contract terms allow (the contracts end between now and 2015).
It is important to note that G4S has no contracts in Gaza – there are misleading press reports which claim that we do, but they are untrue.