Vehicles, equipment and firearms issued to police are part of the arsenal for the war against crime and lawlessness and should at all times be accounted for, not be abused or lost into the hands of the heartless criminals, North West MEC for Human Settlements, Public Safety and Liaison ,Ms Desbo Mohono said on Sunday.
In her speech delivered on the second and last day of Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) North West’s 7th Provincial Congress held in Orkney in the North West Province, MEC Mohono in paying tribute to police highlighted that unfavourable working conditions, limited resources that at times put the lives of officers at risk and lack of support from communities have not deterred police from standing between criminals and communities.
The MEC said that though law enforcers are jeered at, stretched to the limit and most times unappreciated they have held the torch high up and serve their communities with pride, honour, and dignity despite difficulties and challenges that they experience on a daily basis.
“Though you are in most instances unfairly painted with the same brush with the few who have disgraced the dignified uniforms you wear through their deviant conduct, you have absorbed the ridicule. You have bled, shed tears as you buried martyrs from among your own ranks, but never gave up” emphasised Mohono.
The MEC further said that the casualties that police have suffered in the war against crime should tell every member that the stakes are high in the war, which law enforcement agencies cannot afford to lose because of ill discipline and absenteeism, which she said impact on planning, and reduces the force capacity for effective law enforcement.
“The battle lines are drawn and your members are either on the side of the law or with the criminals. They cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. An officer who befriends criminals and or offenders in prison betrays his oath of office and is a danger to all of us. An officer who overlooks an offence for a bribe is a leech who will bleed all of us to death to satisfy their greed,” said Mohono in her forthright maiden address to POPCRU.
She called for integrity and excellence in the execution of duties, which she said, should be the hallmark of every officer and all POPCRU members and further called on union members to be intolerant to the ill-disciplined to expose the corrupt and those who compromise safety of others by drinking on duty.
If the thunderous applause and standing ovation that MEC Mohono received from delegates is anything to go by, then POPCRU has taken a stand and recommitted itself to support transformation of the criminal justice system by uprooting ill-discipline greed and corruption from among its ranks.
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Mohono calls on Police union to take stand against abuse, loss of resources, ill-discipline and absenteeism
Province
