A WELL-KNOWN owner of a security company was yesterday charged with two counts of rape.

Two women who work at his company in Nelspruit laid the charges against him and claimed that he had been forcing himself on them since January.

According to the charge sheet, the women said in affidavits that they first agreed to have sex with the man in January after he had promised to give them jobs as security guards.

"We discovered that nearly all women working in this company have slept with this man.

"And our fear now is that he had not used condoms," said one of the women in a statement.

She said they agreed to have sex because of poverty.

"After sleeping with the company owner he insisted on continuing to sleep with us and threatened to boot us out if we refused."

Hours after the cases were opened, a police inspector allegedly called the women and told them he was going to release the "suspect" unless they gave him valid reasons as to what took them nearly a year to report the incidents.

Police spokesperson Superintendent Abie Khoabane said if the women had a problem with any police officer, they must report it to the station commissioner.