Police unions take crime intelligence boss to court

Police Unions Sapu and Popcru will be taking their new crime intelligence boss, Major-General Pat Mokushane, to the labour court today after he ordered officers at his unit’s headquarters in Pretoria to be redeployed to clusters across the country.

All crime intelligence officers were reportedly given until today to vacate the unit’s headquarters in Erasmuskloof. This, said Sapu president Mpho Kwinika, was illegal and impractical.

“He must get his facts straight,” he said, referring to Mokushane.

“If he says he is going to move people to the provinces, who are these people he is referring to, because all of these people are operatives and some of them are working throughout the country and abroad? Some of them are used by the presidency and ministers. Second, there are no posts for those people in the provinces or local government.”

He said entire restructuring and redeployment processes were being flouted and this would end in chaos.

Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said the union would be filing an interdict against Mokushane.

“We are interdicting the process because we were not consulted as stakeholders as we think that decision is not in line with the bargaining process,” he said.

Yesterday, News24 reported that some crime intelligence members were threatening to go on strike. Saps spokesperson General Sally De Beer said she was not aware of reported threats of action by members.

“We won’t be commenting on these reports because people’s names aren’t even mentioned and it’s just speculation,” she said.  She did, however, say that should a strike be imminent, “appropriate processes should be followed”.

Kwinika said a bargaining council meeting between Popcru and Sapu was scheduled for today for members to decide on a way forward. He said there were several operational concerns that this mass exodus would result in.

“There’s still lots of consultation to be done. You can’t just move people into a hole when there are no posts for them,” he said.

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