Solidarity 'demonise' SAPS

2003-03-16 19:09

Pretoria - The SA Police Service has challenged the trade union Solidarity to substantiate its claim that 40 percent of the force were threatening to resign over a massive restructuring programme currently underway.

A SAPS spokesperson, senior superintendent Selby Bokaba, said on Sunday that Solidarity was waging a campaign to "demonise" the SAPS management and to fan racial tension in the force by feeding the public "a litany of half-truths and blatant lies".

Solidarity claimed last week there was wide unhappiness in the SAPS with plans to restructure the force in order to improve service delivery and promote representivity.

The SAPS was executing a government resolution by transferring large numbers of its members to completely different positions - "out of their comfort zones," in the words of deputy police commissioner, Andre Pruis.

Solidarity has threatened court action, saying that representivity was the main purpose of the transfers and that service quality came second.

The union had received at least 100 formal complaints from its members because policemen were being transferred from expert units to ordinary operational posts, according to spokesperson Dirk Hermann.

This would cause a loss of expertise, he said.

A chaplain had for instance been transferred to a post as an account clerk, and some married couples were transferred to different towns. About 40 percent of SAPS officials were threatening to resign said Hermann.

Bokaba questioned Solidarity's mandate to quote figures such as 40 percent. The union recruited members from police ranks, he said, but it recruited only whites.

All whites together did not make 40 percent of the police staff, he said, and not all of them even belonged to Solidarity. So whom did the union count to arrive at its figure?

Solidarity also was not officially recognised by the SAPS, he said, and did not have access to official information. He challenged them to substantiate their claim of 40 percent.

As regarded the loss of expertise, said Bokaba, if a drugs expert worked at a large police station instead of a drugs unit his expertise was still available to the police. The decentralisation of skills did not mean a loss of expertise, he said.

Solidarity must desist from riding on the back of the SAPS in trying to promote itself as the latter-day advocate of fairness and equity, said Bokaba.

- SAPA