The South African Police Service (SAPS) will be promoting more than 14‚000 low-ranking and long-serving police officers over the next year‚ National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega announced on Wednesday.
Phiyega made the announcement at a media briefing just a day after briefing Parliament on the latest crime statistics‚ which showed an increase in serious crimes.
She said the briefing was to share some of the work that was been done “to keep men and women in blue motivated”‚ and to meet capacity challenges in the fight against crime.
“We have introduced a number of measures‚ some of which will see more than 7‚000 constables and sergeants being promoted to the next ranks in the current financial year.
“A further R150-million will be set aside for the next financial year to promote another 7‚000 constables and sergeants who will be having 11 years of service at the time of promotion‚” said Phiyega.
She said these interventions should address most of the promotion-related processes which have taken longer than necessary due to court challenges.
“The SAPS has been looking forward to addressing employees qualifying for major and lieutenant ranks. But owing to legal challenges by Solidarity‚ the SAPS has no choice but to wait until the court process has run its course‚” said Phiyega.
She brushed aside accusations that the police service was “anti-white”‚ while hitting out at trade union Solidarity‚ whose legal challenges had forced police management to freeze another 1‚611 promotional posts.
“That is not true and the people making these claims are fully aware as the statistics are there for all so see and extrapolate. Contrary to these unfounded accusations the SAPS values the contributions of all racial groupings and we have no intention of deviating from this way of doing this‚” said Phiyega.
She said had Solidarity not interdicted the police‚ they would have seen the promotion of 111 whites‚ 21 Indians‚ 117 coloureds and 1‚362 Africans.
The promotions did not end there‚ and will see members of the task team investigating Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir bumped up a rank for working “extremely hard“.
The task team has been credited for thwarting Krejcir’s prison escape plan.
Phiyega also took time to defend the integrity and accuracy of the crime statistics released this week.
“I have confidence in our statistics‚ absolute confidence. The crime stats of this country have been announced for many years without clearance by a fit and proper institution that manages very special statistics in this country. When we announced the statistics we had a clearance certificate from the statistician-general of South Africa‚” said Phiyega.
Phiyega to promote thousands of police officers
The South African Police Service (SAPS) will be promoting more than 14‚000 low-ranking and long-serving police officers over the next year‚ National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega announced on Wednesday.
Phiyega made the announcement at a media briefing just a day after briefing Parliament on the latest crime statistics‚ which showed an increase in serious crimes.
She said the briefing was to share some of the work that was been done “to keep men and women in blue motivated”‚ and to meet capacity challenges in the fight against crime.
“We have introduced a number of measures‚ some of which will see more than 7‚000 constables and sergeants being promoted to the next ranks in the current financial year.
“A further R150-million will be set aside for the next financial year to promote another 7‚000 constables and sergeants who will be having 11 years of service at the time of promotion‚” said Phiyega.
She said these interventions should address most of the promotion-related processes which have taken longer than necessary due to court challenges.
“The SAPS has been looking forward to addressing employees qualifying for major and lieutenant ranks. But owing to legal challenges by Solidarity‚ the SAPS has no choice but to wait until the court process has run its course‚” said Phiyega.
She brushed aside accusations that the police service was “anti-white”‚ while hitting out at trade union Solidarity‚ whose legal challenges had forced police management to freeze another 1‚611 promotional posts.
“That is not true and the people making these claims are fully aware as the statistics are there for all so see and extrapolate. Contrary to these unfounded accusations the SAPS values the contributions of all racial groupings and we have no intention of deviating from this way of doing this‚” said Phiyega.
She said had Solidarity not interdicted the police‚ they would have seen the promotion of 111 whites‚ 21 Indians‚ 117 coloureds and 1‚362 Africans.
The promotions did not end there‚ and will see members of the task team investigating Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir bumped up a rank for working “extremely hard“.
The task team has been credited for thwarting Krejcir’s prison escape plan.
Phiyega also took time to defend the integrity and accuracy of the crime statistics released this week.
“I have confidence in our statistics‚ absolute confidence. The crime stats of this country have been announced for many years without clearance by a fit and proper institution that manages very special statistics in this country. When we announced the statistics we had a clearance certificate from the statistician-general of South Africa‚” said Phiyega.
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