THE South African Police Union is considering taking legal action against the South African Police Service management on the issue of the lack of promotions in the entire police service.

Thousands of dedicated police officers are frustrated at the slow pace at which they get promotions.

There is no reasonable workplace that should take between 10 and 15 years or longer to promote a person, or not promote them at all.

As an example, it takes nine years including two years of training for a police constable to be promoted to the rank of a sergeant.

Sapu would like to express its disappointment that there is nothing that the police officers on the ground can be proud of. They are being killed on a daily basis while management can't even compensate them.

It is totally unacceptable that we can't get promotions according to the service we render.

We are currently having about 57000 police inspectors who have been waiting to be promoted to the rank of captain countrywide.

The SAPS has been dragging its feet in resolving the issue of promotions in the police for sometime now.

We are not saying this large number should be necessarily made managers because the rank of captain is a management rank.

It is precisely for that reason that Sapu has been calling for the urgent review of the promotions policy in the SAPS.

We have been saying let all performing officers be adequately compensated, not necessarily be promoted to higher ranks.

Oscar Skommere, Brooklyn, Pretoria