Timeslive reports that the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), which represents the majority of SA’s police officers, has described tackling crime in the country as an “impossible burden".
The union said in the wake of the release of the annual crime statistics on Tuesday that there simply weren’t enough resources to protect the country’s citizens. "Considering that the SAPS is constituted by 191‚000 police officials‚ a significant part of which are office-based within the bloated national and provincial managerial offices‚ who have to safe-keep a growing population of 57-million‚ it has become an impossible burden to tackle the challenge of crime accordingly‚" said spokesperson Richard Mamabolo. He indicated that police officers were strained and stressed – and that morale was low. "Much as the national police commissioner promises to increase the number of trainees to 7‚000 per year‚ we know very well that senior government officials have recently been flirting with the idea of cutting down public service jobs‚ with claims that the public wage bill was too high. This real threat to jobs has seen the demoralisation of many within the public service‚" said Mamabolo.
The crime statistics revealed that 85 police officers had been killed in the last financial year. While most of those did not die in the line of duty‚ Mamabolo said calls for the police ministry to deal with cop murders had fallen on deaf ears‚ especially since some of those killed had been murdered in police stations.
- Read this report by Naledi Shange in full at Timeslive
- Read too, Police colleges to increase intake, at Cape Times
- And also, Most cops killed while off-duty, at Timeslive
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page