MEC: Corrupt cops report not ignored
2012-07-25 21:36
Cape Town - Western Cape Community Safety MEC Dan Plato did not ignore a report sent to him about corrupt police officers, his spokesperson said on Wednesday.
"The report was not ignored - several e-mails were sent to the author [Liza Grobler] thanking her for the submission," Greg Wagner said.
"We welcome these kinds of studies, and we have just partnered with the Institute for Security Studies to promote effective policing, through our "Reward a cop, Report a cop" programme".
The initiative enabled the public to sms, call a hotline, e-mail or use social networking site Twitter to comment on police actions.
The Cape Times reported on Wednesday that Grobler, a criminologist, was dismayed that no action had apparently been taken since she sent findings from her study to various officials.
In her thesis, "The murky symbiosis of dirty cop and gangster", she alleges that police officers steal drugs from court exhibits and use police vehicles to transport drugs for dealers.
She sent a report to Plato in February and said that although he had acknowledged it, there was no communication on the findings.
When her study was published in 2006, she had also sent it to then community safety MEC Leonard Ramatlakane, his successor Lennit Max, and former Western Cape police commissioner Mzwandile Petros.
"I never heard from them... Their whole attitude was extremely strange and they didn't seem to be interested in scratching it open and healing it," Grobler told the Cape Times.
Wagner said some of the problems around police management and control mentioned in the report were similar to what the department had already identified itself.
- SAPA
