Police union threatens action over transfer plan
The South African Police Union (Sapu) has threatened to interdict plans to move crime intelligence personnel from the unit’s headquarters in Pretoria to regular police clusters around the country if police management fail to reverse the plan at a meeting on Monday.
Analysts warned the move could affect crime-fighting efforts of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and deal a blow to intelligence.
Sapu says the directive blindsided the union and its members when it was announced by new acting divisional commissioner of crime intelligence Maj-Gen Pat Mokushane on Wednesday.
It was made five days after Mokushane’s appointment.
Sapu general secretary Oscar Skommere told Business Day on Sunday they had asked for an urgent meeting. The union was not consulted, he said, and the move would entail major structural change to the SAPS.
If the meeting failed to go ahead, Sapu would interdict the process to allow for consultation, Skommere said.
Mokushane said at a meeting on Wednesday all Pretoriabased personnel had to indicate by Monday which provinces they wanted to be moved to.
Mokushane said in a letter to structures on Thursday the SAPS management believed the police force was not fulfilling its duties “because of the lack of personnel and resources at cluster level where incidents of crime are reported”.
The letter said the management felt most SAPS personnel were stationed at the head office, “where no incidents of crime are reported”.
Rudolph Zinn, senior lecturer in forensic and crime investigation at Unisa, said the new structure might affect crimefighting negatively.
Basing policing on intelligence was an internationally recognised model of policing, Zinn said. The decision to move away from that could affect strategic intelligence in the country that operated at a national level.
“There is a big problem coming, regardless of [whether] you replace the people or not. It will mean that the intelligence unit’s work at [the] head office will come to a standstill and that it will take a very long time before it is on a level again where it functions well,” Zinn said. Chris de Kock, former head of Crime Research and Intelligence, said the immediate implication of structural changes in the police was that it would destabilise the unit. Crime intelligence was already seen to be destabilised by the absence of a permanent leader after Lt-Gen Richard Mdluli was suspended several years ago.
De Kock said the move reminded him of former police commissioner Jackie Selebi’s decision to disband the specialist crime units in his term. It led to specialist personnel not working in their fields of expertise and their knowledge was not used at station level, which was the original intention.
LACK OF PERSONNEL AND RESOURCES AT CLUSTER LEVEL WHERE INCIDENTS OF CRIME ARE REPORTED THERE IS A BIG PROBLEM COMING, REGARDLESS OF [WHETHER] YOU REPLACE THE PEOPLE