40% of Gauteng cops can't drive
2013-04-05 09:14
Johannesburg - Nearly 40% of Gauteng police do not have
drivers' licences, The Star reported on Friday.
Community safety MEC Faith Mazibuko told the Gauteng
Legislature that 11 611 SA Police Service (SAPS) operational members in the
province did not have drivers' licences, compared to 18 872 who did, according
to the report.
Mazibuko said 60% of those without licences were functional
members working outside police stations as crew on response and sector
vehicles, client service centres, as guards at cells and courts, at roadblocks
and as domestic violence co-ordinators.
Democratic Alliance Gauteng provincial leader John Moody,
who asked the question in the legislature, said it was "an explicit
requirement for employment under the SAPS Act" to have a valid driving
licence.
Department of community safety spokesperson Thapelo Moiloa
said members were deployed as Mazibuko said.
"However, it is a worrying factor [that] in the event
that they are requested to drive attending to scenes of crime, this would
compromise the safety of other drivers on Gauteng roads," Moiloa told the
newspaper.
SAPS Gauteng said police no longer required licences.
"Since 2007, the SAPS nationally began to relax the
mandatory requirement for a licence from applicants for employment in the
SAPS," Colonel Nxolo Kweza was quoted as saying.
"In 2009, the licence requirement was then removed as a
requirement for recruits as an entry-level constable."