Pretoria - Disgruntled Tshwane Metro Police Department officers have threatened to embark on an unprecedented protest today to raise a number of labour-related issues.
They will also denounce favouritism allegedly shown by the City’s chief of police, Lieutenant-General Johanna Nkomo to some employees.
Their planned protest is expected to take place at the metro police headquarters in Pretoria West.
Speaking anonymously to the Pretoria News, some officers lamented the fact that their previous attempts to raise their grievances with Nkomo failed to yield positive results.
They said Nkomo treated them unfairly by making them work long overtime hours without affording them enough time to rest at home.
They alleged that the police chief often demonstrated favouritism to some staff members by assigning them fewer responsibilities which were not in line with their ranks.
For example, they cited that one of the directors, whose name is known to the Pretoria News, was allowed to perform duties of a deputy director while he earned the salary of a director.
Also on their list of grievances will be the ill-equipped control centre at the head office.
The centre, they claimed, remained poorly equipped despite the fact that the City bought equipment such as speakers and computers about four to five years ago to capacitate its operations.
According to them, the speakers and computers were gathering dust and still waiting to be installed at the centre.
SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) regional chairperson Nkhetheni Muthambi said the union was familiar with the issues and expressed support for the protest.
“For the equipment to be left to gather dust for more than four years amounts to wasteful expenditure. We tried to raise the matter with the chief and she has not done anything about it.
“She simply doesn’t respect our structures in her department,” Muthavhi said.
He said the only way to get Nkomo’s attention would be through a protest.
Such a protest would also put under the spotlight the matter of Nkomo’s qualifications, he said.
Muthavhi claimed that Nkomo “lied” in her CV that she possessed a Master’s degree and that it later turned out she didn’t have such a qualification.
“She misrepresented her qualifications by stating that she has a Master’s degree while she doesn’t have one,” he said.
Nkomo was appointed the chief of metro police in 2017.
In February she came under fire from Samwu for failing to make sure her department purchased bullets for the shooting training of the metro police.
At the time, it was also mentioned that she didn’t have a traffic management diploma when she was appointed.
However, she subsequently went for training to acquire the qualification.
The Pretoria News understands that not all metro police would be part of the protest.
Department spokesperson Senior Superintendent Isaac Mahamba said: “We are not aware of any picketing that will take place at the head office.
"However, we take note of the report and we will deploy our members to monitor the situation.”
Pretoria News