Good cops need citizens’ support, their overpaid bosses held accountable

It seems incomprehensible that, while crime is one of the major problems preventing South Africa from succeeding, the budget for policing can be cut and thousands of cops and detectives taken off our streets.

Over the next three years, R26 billion is to be trimmed from the SA Police Service’s allocation. But, almost as incomprehensible as that is the reality that, according to the police department’s annual report, tabled in October last year, the organisation had underspent its budget on visible policing by R2.665 billion and underspent on detective services by R997 million.

Public policy and security studies researcher Ziyanda Stuurman said the Saps’ bloated leadership structures meant not enough new officers were being trained, “and too many officers are receiving automatic promotions within the ranks with little regard for their actual performance in their jobs”.

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And therein lies the rub. So many of our essential services personnel in this country – be they nurses, teachers or cops – seem to regard what they do as just another job, rather than the vocation it should truly be.

In that, they are no different from our politicians, who long ago seemed to have ditched the belief that they are there to serve their fellow citizens. That attitude of “I didn’t join the struggle to be poor” as one ANC apparatchik famously put it, is reflected across large swatches of our society as people scramble to get what they can… at whatever cost to others.

This is not to say that there are not dedicated public servants – and particularly police members – who are doing their utmost to work efficiently and resist the temptations of bribery and corruption.

Those cops need our support – but we also need to demand results from their overpaid bosses. Until we do, the criminals will keep winning.