The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) is infuriated by the snail’s pace level at which recurring incidents of police killings continue unabated.

We have learned of yet other killings in the Western Cape, where Sergeant Simphiwe Kwepile was shot in Mandela Park, with Sergeant S Mketi killed in Khayelitsha. While both incidents took place last night, we have come to understand that this morning again, Constables Foyle, Mayiya, Maliwa and Mbiza were also attacked outside the Junction Mall in Nyanga while on their way to perform their duties. They are thus far receiving medical attention.

To date, the number of police officers killed since the beginning of the year amounts to 13, with multiple others having suffered from career-threatening injuries and are left disabled. This trend continues unabated, with the SAPS management having failed to come up with a plan to curb such incidents.

Moreover, this randomness and apparent targeting of police officers, on or off duty, has inevitably increased members’ feelings of unsafety and insecurity. It is a clear sign that these officers are being singled out as targets for attacks for their firearms which are later utilised to perpetuate further criminal activities.

Many members of the SAPS are justifiably angered by this trend wherein their colleagues continue to be killed and are specific targets of attack. They consider themselves to be forgotten and neglected victims; that the authorities and, in particular, their own organisation does not care about their safety and security and fail to do anything concrete about the situation. In their view, the overall perception is that the SAPS appears to be reluctant to do anything.

There is an urgent need to examine the reasons why the attacks on and killing of police members have continue at such high levels and also to investigate what could be done to protect the members of the police service, not only in their work environment but also off-duty and in their homes, from attack and murder. No longer can members accept injury or death as merely a consequence or an acceptable risk in the normal execution of their daily work.

No longer can we stand by and listen to long speeches during funerals and commemorations without any action being taken. Police officers too have rights to life.

Our men and women in blue are daily tasked to ensure all our citizens are safe in their homes, work places, places of worship and entertainment. It should be prioritised that in-turn, they and their immediate families are also well looked after. There is an urgent need to review and increase on service allowances for SAPS Act members, and an introduction of the danger allowance for the Public Service Act employees and SAPS Act members.

While we welcome the increased danger allowance from R400 to R700, we have submitted a position paper at the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council (SSSBC), therein demanding the allowance to be increased to R1500, which takes into consideration that according the SSSBC Agreement 4 of 2001, the initial allowance was supposed to have been increased yearly with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), including the cost of living adjustments and the frequency of the dangers these officers find themselves.

Matters of living conditions, family situations, career stagnation and lack of promotion of police officers should be comprehensively addressed as an officer with a healthy morale will perform his/her duties well.

While the onus lies on the police to prevent, combat and investigate crime, communities have a role to play in flushing out crime, as the criminals committing these heinous acts come from the communities we serve, so the improvement of community and police relations is long overdue if we are to build better communities. 

POPCRU will be holding a Policing Indaba which will, among its tasks further interrogate factors behind police killings, measures to curb them and the need to improve good working relations between police and communities.

We wish the injured officers a speedy recovery, and convey our sincerest condolences to the families and friends of those who are unfortunately deceased.

Issued by POPCRU on 12/06/2023

For more information contact Richard Mamabolo on 066 135 4349

The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) has noted with shock emerging revelations relating to the escape of an inmate, Thabo Bester from the Mangaung Correctional Centre, which is contracted to G4S, a British multinational private security company on the 3rd of May 2022.

Following this incident, there has since been an internal investigation which had been closed, wherein the Security Supervisor at the time was dismissed on charges of negligence as opposed to the causal factor behind the fire in the cell, and his matter is currently being handled by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). Three other officials from the Emergency Security Team (EST) are currently under suspension.

It is only now that the matter is reopened on the basis of media reports surrounding the whereabouts of Thabo Bester, which demonstrates that indeed the management of the centre tried to brush the matter under the carpet.

This further raises questions as to whom the burnt body belongs, and how it found itself in Cell 35.

This brings to question the level of responsibility the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) takes in monitoring, and the functionality of controllers which it appoints to ensure that contractual obligations with these private prisons are not violated in line with the prescripts of the Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998.

The government spends almost R1 billion a year of taxpayers’ money on two private prisons which have around 5952 inmates incarcerated – one in Mangaung, Free State, the other in Makhado, Limpopo – owned and managed by local consortiums led by multinational British and US companies.

According to a report tabled in Parliament in October 2022, by way of contrast, the department of correctional services has a daily budget allowance of R385 to detain, clothe and feed prisoners. Costs are considerably steeper and more profitable at the privately run Mangaung Prison at R435 per person a day, and R412 at the Kutama-Sinthumule prison, which are run as a public-private partnership involving the security company G4S and GEO Group respectively.

We are of the firm view that this escape, including multiple other misconducts and abuses reported over the years are mainly a consequence of the DCS having outsourced the functions of the state’s security to foreign-owned companies whose sole preoccupation is profit maximisation as opposed to the core mandate of rehabilitating inmates.

These private companies have a disregard for human rights. Aside from the moral and ethical arguments about prison privatisation, there is ample operational evidence that the policy itself is flawed. The fact that the human rights dimension of private prisons has not been fully examined, is a dereliction of duty.

We are of the view that the provision of law and order is the key function of any government. This duty should not be delegated to the private sector, because it is motivated by profit. Money that could be allocated to services is creamed off in profits and fees for consultants and advisory schemes; the private sector becomes even more entrenched in criminal justice policy-making; and the fuse is lit on a financial time bomb. So far private prisons have failed to demonstrate that they are cost-effective, innovative, and have lower recidivism rates.

Any prison that is being built should contribute to crime prevention by rehabilitating prisoners and reducing repeat incarceration, and for this, we urge the DCS to immediately take over the two private prisons in the country and scrape their contracts as they extend to 2026 and 2027. This should also be accompanied by absorbing all personnel as fully fledged correctional officials.

Issued by POPCRU on 27/03/2023

For more information contact Richard Mamabolo on 066 135 4349

The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) has noted recent developments regarding the outstanding impasse in relation to public servants’ demands around the government’s unilateral implementation of a 3% against the inflation rate of 6,7%, leading to further hostilities that have resulted in the latter intimidating workers through court interdicts, with the sole aim of defocusing and dividing workers.

We wish to categorically state that we are part of and support actions taken by public service unions who are currently mobilising against the employer in defence of collective bargaining.

As POPCRU, we have resolved last year to embark on a national march, held on the 20th of September 2022, with build-up programs including provincial lunch-hour pickets and provincial marches. These programs included submitting a memorandum of demands that among others included the following;

* Reversal of Austerity Measures/Budget Cuts

* Filling of all vacant posts

* Full implementation of PSCBC Resolution 1 of 2018

* Non-implementation of all signed agreements and resolutions 

* End to police killings and rising levels of violent crime

* Development and implementation of a promotion policy and grade progression

* Employment of more workers in SAPS, DCS and Traffic

* Building of safe Police Stations for effective crime prevention

* Increase in all Danger Allowances

* Provision of tools of trade in all departments. 

* The incorporation of Public Service Act Personnel as a Category into the SAPS

• A clear upward mobility for the PSA Act in the SAPS
• An end to recruitment corruption in SAPS

The march was about defending the hard-won gains of workers and defending collective bargaining. It was equally directed at government to do away with implementing neoliberal macroeconomic policies of austerity which have destroyed the capacity of the state to deliver on critical services especially in the criminal justice system, and this is evident with the budget cuts and spending that have weakened crime prevention and justice in the country.

Subsequently, the POPCRU Central Executive Committee (CEC held last year from 27-30 November 2022 resolved to continue with the program and to take our grievances to national parliament during this year (2023). We have since drawn up a program of action which, considering other developments within and among public service unions, will be intensified and carried out from Monday, 13 March 2023 which will include lunch-time pickets across workplaces and identified government departments.

As things stand, members within the Criminal Justice (CJC) are spending about 90% of their salaries on basic needs, while they do not qualify for RDP houses, and cannot afford bonded houses. All these challenges they face while government has been refusing to implement the Government Employee Housing Scheme (GEHS).

Our intensified actions will also include the full implementation of the 3rd leg of the PSCBC Resolution 1 of 2018, the reversal of the unilateral implementation of a 3% wage hike for the 2022/23 financial year and an end to austerity measures.

We reiterate once again that this 6th Administration is hell-bent on destroying collective bargaining, rights of workers and made it as its task to reverse and roll-back the gains made by workers over the years. This is evident through numerous actions and continuous appetite of approaching labour courts in resolving matters of collective bargaining as opposed of taking advantage of institutions of dialogues such as bargaining councils.

Workers have been on the receiving end of the assault by this 6th Administration in many ways, including poor working conditions despite the fact that public service workers contribute on daily basis to the betterment of the South African people, especially the working class and the poor in the frontlines of service delivery. For our work to be effective, the public service must have a strong capacity in terms of the suitable headcount of workers in different departments and work-stations. It must also have capabilities in terms of the necessary skills and ongoing training support.

Today, the public service has been severely weakened, especially with regard to its capacity because of the moratorium that has been imposed on the filling of vacancies as a result of the multiple years of the Treasury’s austerity measures. Therefore, the improvements in our working conditions, including improvement in pay, is a necessary means of strengthening the public service.

We remain resolute and reiterate our position that there shall be no 2023/24 wage negotiation until this current dispute is resolved, and urge workers to gather strength during these intimidations, and to be more resolute and determined in their fight to achieve the demands they set, and support the unity demonstrated by the multiple public sector unions as they pursue the agenda of improving their wages and conditions of employment, and in defence of collective bargaining.

Issued by POPCRU on 10/03/2023

For more information contact Richard Mamabolo on 066 135 4349