Safety & Security Workshops & Training

Courses on this website have been written by a group of experts with 70+ years of combined experience in the security industry. They are Francois Marais, Hayley Makhanya and Howard Griffiths from SSC Equity Training.

Francois Marais – Adv. Sec M (Unisa) / FIS (SA)

• Chairman of the Board of Governors of the South African Institute of Security. He is a Fellow of the Institute and also chairs the Ethics Committee
• Former National President of the Security Association of South Africa (SASA) and was awarded Honorary life Membership of SASA following his term of office
• Executive Director & founding member of Child Survivors of Crime (CSOC), a Charity for Children affected by Crime in South Africa
• Founder & Chief Executive of Ghost Squad, a leading proactive Security Service Provider based in Johannesburg
• Former Vice President at JPMorgan Chase Bank – where he was Head of Global Security & Investigations for Sub-Saharan Africa
• Has a specific interest in Criminal law & Police law including the Criminal Procedure Act and Domestic Violence Act. As a Police Reservist he lectured law to student Constables at the Reservist Police Training College in Houghton
• Presents extensively on Vehicle Hijacking avoidance and survival, as well as Identity Theft
• A Magician, Illusionist, Fire-Eater and Public Speaker.
• Represents Child Survivors of Crime on the SSC Equity’s Board of Directors

Howard Griffiths – Grad.I.S (SA) CII

Howard Griffiths is the Managing Director of the Pan-African corporate intelligence firm SSC Global Investigations that is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. SSC Legacy was established in 1962 making it one of South Africa’s oldest investigation firms. Howard is a third generation owner of SSC.

Howard has been involved in investigations for over 35 years. He has also been involved in some of the company’s largest cases that include investigations into cases involving grand fraud, industrial espionage, counter intelligence and surveillance.

He is a graduate of the South African Institute of Security (SAIS) and is also the former chairman of the Gauteng Branch of the South African Security Association (SASA) where he sat on SASA’s National Council.

Howard is currently a member of:

• The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, South African Chapter
• The Council of International Investigators (CII)

Hayley Makhanya

Hayley holds a Management Assistant qualification and also obtained a Grade A from PSIRA. In 2006 she joined the company and handled workforce intelligence until 2010, where she was promoted within the company to I Facts, with her main focus being on pre-employment screening. Hayley was appointed as a secretary of Gauteng Branch of the South African Security Association (SASA) in 2006, where she sat on SASA’s National Council together with Jenny Reid. In 2012 her portfolio changed and she was placed in charge of the CCTV surveillance operators, Security Officers and Independent Managers divisions as well as managing our Data Management system called Meerkat. Currently she has over 50 employees under her supervision and maintains very professional contact with her clientele.

Hayley has been involved in the security industry for over for 16 years and is the first South African black woman who is qualified to use the state of the art Voice Stress Analysis system that SSC Global Investigations employs for lie detection. Hayley Makhanya is the Managing Director of SSC Equity Training and is a 26% shareholder in the company.

Child Surviviors of Crime (CSOC) provides support for children under the age of 18 who have been directly or indirectly affected by any criminal offence committed against them or their families in South Africa. Support is in the form of counselling and therapeutic intervention, education, alleviation of physical suffering and community re-integration. We also strive to raise children’s awareness of personal safety.