JMPD’s top cop bites the bullet

A poverty-stricken, single mother can raise a man of substance who can contribute to the community, says the Johannesburg Metro Police Department’s (JMPD) most celebrated officer for 2019, Superintendent Phineas Manyama.

He started as a security guard at the traffic department in 1989 before it was the JMPD and is now a head of the JMPD’s most essential task team: the tackie squad.

Manyama received a new VW Polo at a JMPD award ceremony in Johannesburg on Wednesday. Born and bred in a rural village in Limpopo, his mother was a farm worker.

His father died when he was very young, leaving his widow to care for seven children. Life was rough and he recalled walking to school barefoot and hungry.

“We were very poor, we used to go to sleep for days without any food, but because everyone was poor in the village, as a child I hardly noticed.

“My mother used to work at farms and earned R150 per month to provide for seven children. “Going into my teen years the level of hunger got unbearable and I dropped out of form 3 (Grade 10) which was a high level in those days,’’ said Manyama.

At age 17, Manyama got on a train to the City of Gold with a prayer in his heart and a bag in his hands after he was retrenched from Ntabazimbi Mine in 1989. “I did not know anyone in Johannesburg. I got off the train and started looking for a place to sleep and I found a hostel.

For a while I slept in people’s kitchens and ate their leftovers just to see another day, while looking for work.

“Then I found an uncle of mine in Randburg and I got in as a security guard at the traffic department.’’

That was the beginning of a career, but many of his peers looked down on him for being a security guard. “

Knowing that my hard work put my siblings through school made me not mind the jokes made by my peers, who were better qualified than me.

Secondly, poverty and dedication motivated me to work hard.”

It was this that led the JMPD to train Manyama as a police officer who today leads a group of officers.

“I work hard out of respect for the public.”

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