Police unions doubt top brass

With a former national police commissioner in prison for fraud and corruption, and his successor suspended, ordinary police officials had no confidence that serious consideration was given to these appointments, the South African Policing Union (Sapu) told Parliament yesterday.

Sapu and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) used budget vote hearings in the police committee to criticise the senior management as being top-heavy and "bloated", with a negative effect on service delivery.

Sapu president Mpho Kwinika said: "Today we meet in this committee with a former national commissioner languishing in jail for a serious crime of corruption and another on suspension.

"This does not give our members confidence that serious consideration is given (to) these appointments." However, he said he realised the issue was not within the scope of the committee.

He also made a plea for the internal police anti-corruption unit, disbanded by Jackie Selebi while he was in charge, to be re-established.

Officers with integrity

"This unit employed police officers with the highest integrity, and had the skills and experience to gather quality evidence that, when presented to a disciplinary hearing, stood up to scrutiny, " he said. "We need to find how we can institutionalise an anti-corruption approach in the police services, otherwise we risk failing in our responsibility as police officers to provide peace and security to the citizens of this country".

Popcru's Lebogang Phepheng said the union had told the committee many times "the SAPS organisational structure is top-heavy".

"A flatter organisational structure is required rather than the many layers of command and control currently in existence, for better service delivery to all South Africans," he said. Any new structure should incorporate decentralisation of both work and authority, with specialised skills deployed at station level.

Phepheng said the top-heavy structure led to duplication of functions, which consumed large amounts of the police budget. "This bloated structure squeezes the department's prospects of sufficient staffing at station level, where manpower is really needed."

Different rules for suspended senior officers

Kwinika also charged that there was a lack of consistency concerning police officers who were suspended. He said senior officers enjoyed suspension on full pay while junior officers had their salaries and benefits withdrawn immediately after being suspended.

"While in principle we welcome tougher measures to be taken, we think that this policy must be applied evenly across all ranks.

"We have also noted that senior police officers enjoy support from government when charged with misconduct, yet ordinary members have to look for their own lawyers even when charged with misconduct while employed by the police department," he said.

Sapu members wanted legal support from the department when charged, Kwinika said.

Lisa Vetten, of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, noted that while the murder of men was on the decrease, the same could not be said for women, whose murders were increasing year by year.

Vetten also questioned the way in which the police calculated their detection rates.

She said the number of cases used to make the calculation should be the sum of those referred to court, those withdrawn, and those declared as unfounded, and then divided by the number of cases reported.

Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge