retrenchment along racial lines
2 February 2007
Top management rejects outright speculation that the South African Police
Service intends reducing the number of white police officials through offering
them severance packages.
In fact last year, when severance packages were discussed for the general
public service, the National Commissioner emphasised the need to retain all
skills and expertise in this organisation and added that our department will
not consider offering the same severance packages to SAPS members.
Similar malicious rumours surfaced during March 2004 and this office issued
a media statement refuting the claims.
Hereunder please find a copy of the media statement issued on 10 March 2004.
Nothing has changed since then, except that our work force has increased and we
are presently actively recruiting white members at entry level.
"Pretoria 2004-03-10 Employment Equity Report: South African Police Service
� Unfounded rumours of retrenchments)"
Top management of the South African Police Service would like to refute
rumours and incorrect information circulating that we are about to embark on a
retrenchment programme among members belonging to specific race groups.
The South African Police Service, as any other department, is required to
submit an Employment Equity Report to the Department of Labour on an annual
basis.
This report, which is required in terms of the Employment Equity Act,
includes inter alia information on the organisation's total workforce during a
certain period, the number of employees in different occupational categories
and numerical goals set for the current Employment Equity Plan.
The data utilised for the last report was for the period 1 October 2002 to 1
October 2003 at which time we had a work force of 133 665.
However, the South African Police Service is a growing organisation. We are
presently in the process of actively recruiting and training thousands of
police officials of all races for deployment throughout the country. The budget
for this recruitment and training programme has already been approved by the
Department of Finance in terms of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework. In
terms of our present growth rate by 31 March 2007 our work force will stand at
157 320.
The numerical goals set out in our last report are guidelines and contain
the ideal figures in terms of racial composition towards which the South
African Police Service is striving. This is our vision, the goal we ultimately
want to achieve � a police service fully representative of the community. But
they are ideal numbers as opposed to set quotas which have to be met at any
cost.
Rumours which are surfacing suggest that in order to achieve our numerical
targets in terms of the Equity Plan, the SAPS will embark on an exit strategy �
or retrenchments � among our Coloured, White and Indian employees. These
rumours are untrue, without any foundation and should be rejected by all our
members.
Top management of the South African Police Service would like to
emphatically state that there is no exit strategy in place for members of our
organisation � of any race. As a growing State department we need every single
one of our members and have in fact � over and above our recruitment campaign �
embarked on a programme to retain our members with scarce skills, offering
contracts and cash allowances to encourage them to remain in our employ.
As opposed to retrenching members we are actively recruiting new members of
all races and at various levels.
"It is extremely irresponsible for any person to sow fear among our members
who already perform a dangerous task often under stressful conditions," said
National Commissioner Jackie Selebi. "All our members have secure employment
status and there will be no retrenchments or witch hunts along racial lines in
this organisation," he added.
For further information, please contact:
Sally de Beer
National police spokesperson
Cell: 082 779 8658
Issued by: South African Police Service
2 February 2007
