'Use proper platforms' to complain about SAPS, not media

Labour unions should use the proper platforms if they want to lodge a complaint against the South African Police Service, North West police said on Monday.

"Laying complaints and charges through media is not how the police work," said Brigadier Thulane Ngubane.

"It's difficult to respond to any of these kind of allegations done through the media... People at leadership-level know what procedures or protocols to follow when they have grievances."

Ngubane was responding to a press statement from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the province on the attitude of the police.

In the statement, provincial secretary Solly Phetoe said Cosatu was worried about the attitude of officers in particular at marches and rallies.

"The attitude of some individual police officers continues to represent the apartheid attitude and that of capitalists who continue to destroy our 20-year democracy and destroying our trade union movement, in particular those affiliated to Cosatu," Phetoe said.

"The situation in the mining area is not improving or being brought under control, due to some individual police officers celebrating the continuation of the attacks of our members."

Phetoe said that on April 24, Cosatu and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) led a march against certain individual policemen at the Phokeng police station and their conduct and attitude towards workers and their leaders.

Cosatu had submitted memorandums and complaints with evidence but nothing had been done.

"We are being treated very badly by the SAPS, both at the level of the province and the local police stations," Phetoe said.

However, Ngubane said the work of the police was to enforce the law and the constitution.

He said if Cosatu had proof it should insist on seeing the provincial police commissioner to resolve the issue because it would not be resolved in the media.

"We are ready and more than willing to sort the issues out. The question of peace in the platinum belt can and shall never be resolved through policing. It needs employers, employees and labour to work together," said Ngubane.

The Farlam Commission of Inquiry is currently investigating the circumstances of the fatal shootings of 34 people, mostly protesting miners during a strike at Marikana, near Rustenburg in 2012.

In the preceding week, 10 people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed in strike-related violence.