Metro police chiefs across South Africa are calling for metro police officers to be held more accountable for their actions, and for a review of their conditions of employment.
”The Salga [SA Local Government Association] Central Bargaining Council resolution on conditions of service and disciplinary code should be reviewed. A distinction should be made between policing staff and other local government employees with regard to at the very least, disciplinary code,” Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride told Parliament on Tuesday.
Addressing the provincial and local government committee, McBride said it was unfair to expect police chiefs to maintain disciple with their hands tied behind their backs.
”Our duties as traffic officers provide us with more power than ordinary citizens and as such provide as with greater opportunity to interfere with people’s lives,” McBride said, calling for the traffic officer’s code of conduct to be more closely aligned with that of the SA Police Service than regular government employees.
He explained that a potential criminal facing disciplinary hearings was returned to active duty with his weapon and vehicle if the hearing was not concluded within three months.
This was not conducive to effective policing and was ”quite frankly, dangerous,” he said.
”What we are asking for is not unreasonable and that is for the metro police to emulate the SAPS.”
The current conditions of service were expected to come under review in February next year.
Presenting their forces to the committee for the first time, police chiefs also called for closer collaboration with the police. They argued that the reluctance of the SAPS to co-operate with them restricted the crime fighting potential of both operations.
”Municipal or metro police are effective force-multipliers, as they were intended. With greater co-ordination, co-operation and integration of planning with the SAPS, this effectiveness can be even further enhanced for the reduction of crime,” McBride said.
He said the metro police had no real-time access to SAPS statistics and police refused to recognise the rank structure of the metro police.
”If we had access to their data base [Morpho Touch] then our roadblocks could be used to help catch wanted criminals, not just parking ticket offenders.” – Sapa