Forty percent of cops have no drivers' licence: report

Nearly 40% of Gauteng police do not have drivers' licences, according to a report.

 The Star newspaper reported on Friday that 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, according to the report.

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."