Police union calls for General Khehla Sitole's head

The South African Policing Union (Sapu) has called for the national police commissioner, General Khehla Sitole, to be axed.

The union’s general secretary, Tumelo Mogodiseng, said on Wednesday they had received several complaints about Sitole from middle commanders countrywide.

“He is trying to force what he calls transformation into the throats of senior commanders. This has led to a demoralised police service management.

“There is no way that the police can succeed in the battle against crime. We can state it categorically today that when the police minister releases crime statistics towards the end of this year, the gloomy picture will be visible for everyone to see that General Sitole’s leadership of the police will not yield the desired results,” Mogodiseng said.

He said they “despise” Sitole’s leadership and called on Minister of Police Bheki Cele and President Cyril Ramaphosa to establish a board of inquiry to determine whether Sitole was fit for office.

According to Mogodiseng, there had been a “complete paralysis of the police” under Sitole.

He claimed Sitole was destroying cluster commanders and that major-generals were appointed as station commanders without any resources and personnel to support them.

“His poor governance, weak capacity, failure to provide the necessary leadership, his bloated managerial structure and, above all, his wholesale and unilateral changes in cluster structures has led to our call for an end to his leadership.

“General Sitole must go. Not tomorrow, but now. There is no turning back now, he has to go.”

National police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said it was “unfortunate” that Sapu had chosen this route to raise its concerns.

“Since the inception of the rationalisation process in SAPS, labour, including Sapu, was consulted every step of the way.

“Their contribution has always been valuable and we will continue to maintain a healthy working relationship with them,” Naidoo said