City police doubling up shifts owing to staff shortage

THE eThekwini’s metro police department is facing critical staff shortages, forcing many officers to work almost double their normal working hours, and leading to increases in overtime expenses.

It emerged during an executive council meeting last week that a request had been made for R56million for the department for “non-structured overtime”.

According to a report to the committee, which The Mercury has seen, the expenditure was due to “various special events hosted by the city over weekends” and “safety and security policing”.

The budget adjustment, which was to be regularised during the mid-term review, was approved by the executive committee.

However the DA raised questions about whether councillor security measures were putting pressure on the metro police department.

Metro police spokesman acting senior superintendent Sibonelo Wiseman Mchunu said the department needed to double its staff complement of 2500 to function optimally. He said due to the shortage of staff, most members worked almost double the legal time. “They are supposed to work 40 hours a week, but sometimes work 60 hours a week.”

Mchunu said the department had recently taken on more responsibilities. “There are many projects to monitor, including bridges and highways to patrol.”

DA leader Zwakele Mncwango said the department was put under pressure by assuming other security cluster responsibilities and thereby creating the need for overtime which had not been budgeted for.

“We must not pretend that we do not know that this R56 million is due to the overtime by the metro police as they guard councillors, something that used to be done by municipal security,” he said.

“What is happening here is that more money is being spent on security, and our concern is that money is spent on protecting the councillors instead of being spent protecting the citizens of eThekwini.”

However IFP leader Mdu Nkosi said the issue of councillor security should not be taken lightly as it was a serious matter.

“Let’s not criticise the security for the councillors who need it. How would we feel in this council if we came here in the morning and found that two councillors had been killed? This is a serious issue and should not be taken lightly,” he said.

Deputy mayor Fawzia Peer denied that the money was for overtime, saying it was incorrectly attributed as overtime and she had requested the officials to correct the mistake.

“There are vacancies that need to be filled within the department and that creates pressure. You find that because of the vacancies, the officers have to work for longer hours. When they are supposed to be off, we call them back on duty,” Peer said.