Community
safety MEC Faith Mazibuko told the Gauteng Legislature that 11,611 SA Police
Service (SAPS) operational members in the province did not have driver's
licences, compared to 18,872 who did.
Nearly 40 percent of Gauteng police do not have driver's licences.
Community safety MEC Faith Mazibuko told the Gauteng Legislature that
11,611 SA Police Service (SAPS) operational members in the province did not
have drivers' licences, compared to 18,872 who did.
Mazibuko said 60 percent of those without licences were functional
members working outside police stations as crew on response and sector
vehicles, client service centres, as guards at cells and courts, at roadblocks
and as domestic violence co-ordinators.
Democratic Alliance Gauteng provincial leader John Moody, who asked the
question in the legislature, said it was "an explicit requirement for
employment under the SAPS Act" to have a valid driving licence.
Department of community safety spokesman Thapelo Moiloa said members
were deployed as Mazibuko said.
"However, it is a worrying factor [that] in the event that they are
requested to drive attending to scenes of crime, this would compromise the
safety of other drivers on Gauteng roads," Moiloa told the newspaper.
SAPS Gauteng said police no longer required licences.
"Since 2007, the SAPS nationally began to relax the mandatory
requirement for a licence from applicants for employment in the SAPS,"
Colonel Nxolo Kweza was quoted as saying.
"In 2009, the licence requirement was then removed as a requirement
for recruits as an entry-level constable."
