JMPD sergeant gets four years for bribery

A JMPD sergeant who headed the “10 plus” rollout for Ward 86, allegedly has been arrested and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment after trying to solicit a bribe from a motorist.

Things went south though for the sergeant (name known to the Record) when the motorist turned out to be a member of the special crime unit, the Hawks.

The sergeant was prosecuted swiftly and is serving his sentence.

Councillor for the ward, Steve Kotzé, has told the Record that thus far the “10 plus” initiative has failed him and the residents of his ward. (The “10 plus” initiative’s aim is to roll out 10 extra JMPD officers in every ward but so far its success has been questionable.)

“The JMPD “10 plus” team was meant to focus on by-law enforcement in respective wards with one team per ward – a great concept until logistics and reality collided,” says Kotze.

“Apart from taking eight months to meet with me as the ward councillor to roll out the plan for this unit to be fully integrated with the CPF and ratepayer associations, a totally different picture emerged when we eventually did get to meet. You probably only will see the ‘dedicated’ Ward 86 Metro Police vehicle for no more than 20 minutes a day in your ward, I am being told,” Kotzé says of his woes with the project.

“This was due to other duties this unit had to perform outside the ward, such as point duty at intersections and attending to accidents – so much for the concept of a dedicated unit. Availability of vehicles for the JMPD 10 plus project in respective wards compounded and confounded matters further.

“The original vehicle deployment plan was to keep vehicles, which had reached replacement time (yet were still in fair condition) for allocation to wards. This was the case for a while at the start of the project but quickly slowed to a grinding halt,” says Kotzé.

“The present vehicle situation is that teams in two wards were sharing a vehicle. Apart from not being able to do the rounds in two wards efficiently, five people in a vehicle can be hazardous if it is attacked by gun fire – a trending reality in our city of late.

“My view of the predicament of this project was to try and work with the sergeant as the team leader of this unit in my ward. He gave me the assurance that matters for escalation could be given to him and would be dealt with. This did not happen even once in spite of a number of instances when I forwarded issues to him. His superior in the Director’s office was contacted at one stage and promised to intervene. This also did not happen.

“Senior management knows of the fraud and bribery that is commonplace in the rank and file of Metro Police in the city – noting the exceptions of some good and dedicated officers – yet are incapable of dealing with this issue.

“The political will of the ruling party seems to lack direction and capacity in getting this chaos dealt with and law and order back on course in our World Class African City,” Kotzé bemoaned the situation.

The Record is awaiting comment from JMPD.