Cele asks doctors to stop giving shirking cops sick notes
POLICE Minister Bheki Cele yesterday appealed to doctors not to give fraudulent sick notes to disgruntled members of the police service.
Cele was speaking to the media following the gathering of more than 1 500 police station heads and commanders from across the country.
The aim was to raise issues in a bid to avert a national police strike.
Cele, who spoke to the police heads at the Department of Defence Logistics Support in Lyttelton, Centurion, said the concerns raised by the station commanders revolved around the preferential treatment for specialist units.
“The biggest bone of contention was that some junior officers who were attached to special units jumped from being constables to warrant officers if they are in the Tactical Response Team, or sergeants if they are in the National Intervention Unit.
“That’s a big jump because you now find very junior guys having higher ranks than people who were there before them.”
Previously, Cele noted how there were 69 219 members within grades 5 and 7 who were long overdue for progression considerations.
Tabling the SAPS 2018/19 budget vote, Cele and National Police Commissioner General Khehla Sitole vowed to roll out the process over the next three years, with re-grading to be done with most units.
Cele said 28 000 officers would be promoted, and the rest in the following two financial years.
He added that despite assurances of promotions being processed, they had been informed that members of the police felt the process was taking too long.
However, he said they had agreed to review the process with stakeholders and the people affected the most. Once the review was completed, Cele said, they would then be able to accurately give officers proper timeframes, costs and feasibility.
“Because, at the end of the day, we don’t want to make promises that we cant keep, so rather have us gather advice on the way forward.”
However, despite stakeholders’ best efforts to deal with the promotions speedily, Cele said they had picked up a modus operandi of a high number of officers in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape not pitching up for their duties and bringing in sick notes.
He said they were looking into the sick notes to determine, with the help of doctors, who was really sick.
According to Cele, between 100 and 120 sick notes were received from KZN and a “worrying” 400 in the Western Cape.
“We have pockets in other provinces using the same tactic, but not the mass action as we have seen in the Western Cape and, to a lesser extent, KZN.”
He said he had even spoken to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi in a quest to dissuade doctors from handing out fake sick notes and work with them.
“We are inviting those officers to go back to their work stations, listen, get engaged and go on with the work.”
He said that in the interim they would be conducting roadshows across the country to explain how the promotions were going to proceed.
This came as Cele won praise for stepping in to avert a national strike by the police, after he promised to address concerns around promotions.
For two weeks, social media messaging urging police members to strike over promotions of low-level officers surfaced, and were backed by unions.
“We support these members who for some it has been more than a decade in one rank. We are calling upon the management to swallow their pride and come (to their) senses and avert this strike, as it will cost the country dearly,” the South African Policing Union said last week.