Salaries behind low morale in the police

THE strain of the job, slow salary increases and the huge gap between ranks are some of the reasons why some members of the SAPS are stressed and depressed.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) said it had investigated 14 police member suicides in the 2020/2021 financial year.

Ipid spokesperson Lizzy Suping said the statistics were also linked to murder suicides, where officers killed their partners.

The 2021/2022 annual report will be tabled next week with the previous year’s stats.

A senior police officer who cannot be identified told the Weekend Argus many officers became depressed due to the slow pace of moving up the ranks, and the fact that they had not seen a pay increase since 2018.

He said in many cases it took a decade before a promotion was granted while others worked two decades to achieve being senior officers.

“SAPS members have not received an increase in the past three years and there are huge gaps between the ranks and this can be a reason for suicides.

“Constable-to-sergeant movement takes about eight years. Sergeant-to-warrant officer also about eight years. In both cases, it normally takes 10 years before a promotion is granted and then there is bad administration.

“Warrant officer-to-captain is post bound, so only if there’s a vacancy post you may apply. Some warrant officers and officers are in their ranks for more than 20 years.”

According to Ipid’s annual report, between April 2020 and March 2021, 263 positions were filled for investigation and information management, 107 for administration with a total of 351 salary bands changed.

By 2018, constables were earning between R175000 and R213000 a year, sergeants earned between R222 000 and 270 000, warrant officers between R278 000 and R407 000 while senior police officers earned R2 million a year.

The Weekend Argus has established these salaries have remained constant since then, with minimal changes and increases in 2022 and that salaries have not increased much in the past three years.

Police expert and consultant at the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme, Andrew Faull, said he had done research on the police’s salaries.

“The South African Police Service wants to re-enlist former police officers. But are police salaries good enough to entice former officers back to work or to keep serving members motivated?

“Senior SAPS managers can earn up to R2 million a year but most police will remain non-commissioned officers throughout their careers.”

National police spokesperson, Colonel Athlenda Mathe said they were waiting on their human resources department to respond to queries about salaries and ranks.

In January 2022, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) said its last annual report indicated allocations were reduced by R15.8 billion this year and by a further R11.5bn in the year ahead.

Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said: “With the current SAPS staff complement being at 177 794, only 141 090 members are under the Police Act, while 36 704 work under the Public Service Act.

“Within those in the Police Act, there are about 50 000 trained officers who are based at national, provincial, district and station offices carrying out work within logistics, human resources, finance and other support tasks, all while there’s an increased shortage of boots on the ground where crime is taking place, with the current ratio standing at 1:405 as opposed to the standard ratio of 1:220.

“These declining figures have further been exacerbated by severance packages since 2019 without filling vacant posts.”