Two police ministers have endorsed it and the president has been asked to sign it into law, but enacting the Private Security Industry Regulation Amendment Act would be one of the greatest blunders of the Zuma administration. The law, which would compel foreign-owned security companies to sell 51% of their businesses to South Africans, was initiated in 2012 by former police minister Nathi Mthethwa.His argument: foreign-owned security companies constituted a threat to our national security because of the large numbers of private security guards in the country.Mthethwa's successor, Nkosinathi Nhleko, enthusiastically took up the cause, stating earlier this year that he was confident that the bill would pass constitutional muster.Repeated attempts by the private security industry, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the European Union to convince the powers that be that the proposed law would unravel property rights, undermine investment, cost thousands of jobs and potentially result in economic sanctions seemed to fall on deaf ears.Now the Security Industry Association of America has got in on the act, suggesting that the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which is up for renewal in September and which could benefit South Africa to the tune of R30-billion, be used as leverage to convince Pretoria of the error of its ways.The association has pointed out that foreign security firms operating in the country are already compelled to hire only South Africans, rendering superfluous the ''national security'' argument.President Jacob Zuma has pledged to work with the private sector to remove obstacles to investment, and to improve relations with business. He would do well to refer the Security Act, which has a decidedly Zanu-PF flavour to it, back to parliament.Stripping investors of their property rights is the death knell of any economy. Zimbabwe, with its 90% unemployment rate, proves that...