Wanted: White and Indian cops

The police, under fire for their policy on the promotion of members of minority groups, are recruiting whites, coloureds and Indians.

KwaZulu-Natal police this week called for white and coloured men and women, and Indian women, to apply for 631 positions.

But at yesterday's recruitment imbizo, less than 50 people from the targeted groups were among at least 3000 applicants at the Pietermaritzburg City Hall.

KwaZulu-Natal police spokesman Major Thulani Zwane said too few white and coloured men and women, and Indian women, wanted to join the service.

Zwane said there were a number of explanations for the low number of applications from minority groups.

"There is a possibility that the stipend, which is R3750, is too low, or the high rate of police officers being killed has given rise to fear of joining," he said.

But the DA and trade union Solidarity - which is currently working on 22 cases involving its members being bypassed for promotion in the police because of their race - said affirmative action guidelines deterred minorities from joining the police.

According to the SA Institute for Race Relations and the 2013 police annual report, 75% of police officers were black, 12% white, 11% coloured and 3% Indian.

The police strategic plan for 2005 to 2010 aimed for a complement of 79% black, 9.6% white, 8.9% coloured and 2.5% Indian officers.

DA spokesman on policing Dianne Kohler Barnard, said it was "cynical beyond belief" that the police in KwaZulu-Natal were now begging minorities to join them when, for the past 15 years, members of "minority groups within the police have been told to their faces that they will never, ever, be promoted".

"Indian officers at the Chatsworth police station tell me that they have not been promoted for 15 years, are nearing retirement, and will have to take a job as soon as they retire because their pension will be too small to live on," said Kohler Barnard.

"They tell me that young black officers were routinely promoted over the heads of the more experienced officers."

She said the situation was a national problem.

"No individual will willingly enter a career in which a logical career path is automatically blocked because of the colour of his skin, and in which exceptional bravery is ignored and exceptional achievements are claimed by others.

"It's far too apartheid-like to attract minorities in their numbers. No one goes where they aren't wanted."

She said highly trained officers were welcomed with "open arms by the private security industry, which is almost as big as the police service today".

Solidarity, which represented former Lieutenant-Colonel Renate Barnard in a high profile Constitutional Court case in which the police were the respondents, said minority groups felt estranged from the police service.

Barnard went to court after she was denied promotion three times despite being the candidate with the best score.

The police told the court that they could not promote her because, in terms of the service's equity policy, white women were over-represented at that staffing level.

"If you look at three big court cases last year, you will see that these officers were denied promotions based simply on their race," said Solidarity deputy general secretary Dirk Hermann. "The police's affirmative action policy is one of the most common complaints by our members."

The Constitutional Court found that the police's employment equity policy was a "restitutionary measure" as envisaged by both the constitution and the Employment Equity Act.

The SA Police Union said the racial makeup of the police was unbalanced.

"There was a priority to push forward a specific race group according to the national demographics. Now the ratio is unbalanced. To balance the ratio, we cannot retrench the blacks. Instead, the police have to recruit from the other race groups. This is a reality and it has to be done," the union's Oscar Skomere said.

Political analyst Adam Habib said the police service's structuring did not inspire confidence.

"It is absolutely true that we could be implementing promotion policies in a much better way.

"It is possible to transform our institutions to make them more demographically representative without making it a win-lose situation. A kind of narrow chauvinist seems to govern promotions process in some institutions," he said.

Habib said there were public institutions, such as SARS, that succeeded in transforming without alienating some race groups.

"All our public institutions should reflect all sides of our population, not only race but also gender and class.

"It is important for society to have a stake in its public institutions. The only way it can is if there is a right mix in diversity and cosmopolitism. I think Solidarity and other groups are not sufficiently appreciative of the importance of diversity and sometimes the ANC is ignorant about cosmopolitism."