Johannesburg - The South African Police Union is seeking legal advice to secure protective gear like masks for its members to protect them against Covid-19.
General secretary Oscar Skommere said the union met with its
lawyers on Friday.
“We were sitting in the meeting working out what we are going to do. We have summoned a small team that will prepare for us if we have to go to court to force them to provide these devices,” said Skommere.
He said downing tools was not an option because of the nature of the crisis.
Many members have had to buy their own masks and he blamed this on departments not having procured the necessary equipment in time. Another problem, he said, was that many of their members were forced to wear masks for longer than periods suggested by health guidelines.
“South Africa is not like Botswana, where you arrest someone and they just follow you to the police station. Here they resist and this can expose us to the virus,” said Skommere.
This comes as two Joburg Metro Police Department officers phoned into Talk Radio 702 complaining that they had to buy their own masks.
According to an internal letter, members were asked to buy their own masks until a time when the department had secured enough masks.
They also complained that they had not been paid properly.
However, the spokesperson for the JMPD, Wayne Minnaar, told the Saturday Star that the department had secured enough masks.
“For the first two days of the lockdown we weren’t ready. Since then, we have received dozens and dozens of masks. The RTMC (Road Traffic Management Corporation) came to our rescue.”
The problem, he said, was that the masks were not getting to the officers because of shift rotations. He suggested that those officers in need of masks go to the head office.
As for the problem of payment, he said this was caused by the introduction of a new HR system and this was in the process of being sorted out.
Correctional services officers were the worst affected by the shortage of masks, said Skommere.