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The South African Policing Union calls upon Police Minister Fikile Mbalula to retract the statement he made on Twitter that he had removed the Mogale City Cluster Commander and Kagiso Police Station Commander because he cannot have rotten cops within the police service. We are giving Minister Mbalula 24 hours to retract this statement as it defames our members.

These senior officers were never convicted in any forum departmental or court of law. We have always called upon the Minister to stop his irresponsible statements that only catches to make newspaper headlines.

His continued irresponsible statements are causing a lot of harm within the police service. As a responsible union we will never allow a situation where our dedicated and committed senior officers are humiliated by a minister who is overlapping in his job.

SAPU calls upon Gauteng Provincial Commissioner Deliwe De Lange to make a commitment that these officers won’t be summarily removed from their posts. We are committed to working with the management in our primary task of rooting out crime in our society. Whilst committed to that just because we will not compromise the dignity of our members.

We find it totally strange that the Minister continues to take over the operational responsibilities of the National Commissioner. We had earlier called upon him to speed the process of appointing a permanent national police commissioner and we had hoped now that we have the national commissioner, the minister will back off and concentrate in his constitutional mandate.

We want to make it clear that if the minister does not retract this statement within the deadline we are giving him, we will litigate against him. SAPU also calls upon Lt-Gen. De Lange to wake up and smell the coffee. The minister cannot treat the SAPS as his spaza shop.

Issued by South African Policing Union