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WELCOMING AND PURPOSE BY THE NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF POLICE, GENERAL FANNIE MASEMOLA WORKSESSION FOR REDEFINING AND REPOSITIONING SERVICE OFFERINGS TO SAPS HUMAN CAPITAL NURTURING TALENT FROM RECRUITEMENT TO RETIREMENT BIRCHWOOD HOTEL AND CONFERENCE CENTRE, BOKSBURG, GAUTENG 12 FEBRUARY 2025 Thank you Programme Director
➢ The Minister of Police, Mr Senzo Mchunu, MP Good day! It gives me great pleasure to address you this morning, to cordially welcome all of you to our Work Session for Redefining and Repositioning Service Offerings to SAPS Human Capital. Thank you for honouring our invitation. This work session marks an important milestone in the history of our organisation as we move towards strengthening and improving the well-being of our members, retaining and enhancing skills, and amongst others improving our members conditions of service. The wellbeing of our members is important to us. We cannot have a functioning SAPS without a physically and emotionally sound team of men and women in blue; let alone to fulfil our Constitutional mandate without our members. Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, the purpose of this work session is to put our heads together and assess the effectiveness of the current Human Resource Service delivery model, programmes and structure and establish their effectiveness or lack thereof. Our ultimate aim is to ensure that we emerge with an effective strategy that will help us improve our employees’ productivity by ensuring a healthy and conducive working environment for all our employees. We can all agree that our organisation has in fact developed progressively over the years and that our human capital investment has improved the developmental priority areas of the SAPS. Ladies and gentlemen, resourcing and capacitating our organisation remains a top priority. This is why it is encouraging to note that since I took over office in April 2022, a total of 28 252 new entry Constable’s were trained and deployed to various police stations across the country to bolster crime combatting effort. I’m also pleased to report that an additional 5500 police recruits arrived at various SAPS academies to commence with the Basic Police Development Learning Programme last week. Those who are in possession of an NQF6 qualification will graduate in six months and those in possession of a senior certificate will graduate in nine months. This indeed demonstrates our commitment to increasing capacity at grass roots level of policing – where it is needed the most. An addition 5744 critical funded posts have been filled on the past three years. These include, posts within the crime intelligence space, detectives, visible policing and specialised units environment’s to mention but a few. The promotion of our members to higher ranks also plays a pivotal role in ensuring that we retain skills and manage talent within the organisation from recruitment to retirement. Indeed, Post promotions are an important talent retention strategy which SAPS has in place to improve the working conditions of our members. Despite budget cuts, we remain committed to our strategy of promoting members within the service, a tradition that we embark on every single year because this has long-term impact in the betterment of the lives of our members. I’m therefore pleased to report that, in the last six months, 3 182 members were promoted to higher ranks through our internal post promotions strategy. This is indicative of our commitment to fostering leadership, excellence and career growth within the organisation. SAPS members, we know that the issue of housing benefits are a point of contention. Today I would like to assure you that we are doing our best to meet the needs and demands of our members. We are currently in negotiations with our stakeholders to come up with a better offer as far as housing benefits are concerned. As management, we cannot shy away from admitting that we have personnel facing multiple challenges stemming from either their work environment challenges, family dynamics or communities in which they live. During a briefing session with EHW Component management, they indicated that issues affecting the wellbeing of our members which also have an impact on the organisation include mental health issues, lifestyle diseases, disciplinary cases they are facing, financial indebtnessness, among others, which often lead to absenteeism, maladaptive coping strategies, and suicide to name but a few. Minister, we will not allow our men and women in blue to be perpetrators of Gender based violence and femicide (GBVF). Those who are found to be the perpetrators of this type of crime within our ranks, will change their blue uniform to orange. We cannot also allow a situation where our members are victims of GBVF. I urge you both women and men, to speak out and seek the necessary assistance before it’s too late. Police officers, we know that you get to deal with a lot of distressing and traumatising incidents in your line of duty. Therefore, once again, I would like to encourage you to please attend debriefing sessions with EHW members. It might seem unnecessary shortly after the incident but overtime your emotional wellbeing will be affected and those around you will bear the brunt of your rage. Counselling and trauma debriefing are available to members 24/7. Our SAPS’ EHW follows an integrated approach utilising psychologist, social workers, chaplains, and medical administration practitioners to provide support and assistance to you as our employees. Throughout the year we host multiple stressor workshops for members in order to assist with vicarious trauma. We take the mental health of our members very seriously and we want you to do the same for your own sake, and for the sake of those you hold dear. We have joined forces with Polmed, Gems, and Health Risk Manager to support our 132 psychological service practitioners in taking care of the needs of our over 184 106 employees nationwide. The SAPS Commanders, you also have a role to play in ensuring the wellbeing of members in your command. The role of supportive commanders is important in maintaining SAPS members’ motivation and morale. As SAPS management, we condemn the killing of our police officers in the strongest possible terms. Police officers are in communities to serve but sadly, they can end up being victims of the same community they are deployed to serve. Minister, we are constantly hosting refresher courses for members and finding better equipment and protective gear to ensure members are always operationally and tactically ready to respond to the call of duty. Programme Director, under this roof today, we have individuals with lived experiences and experts in different fields who will be sharing their life experiences and expert knowledge. The ultimate purpose of course is to emerge with a realistic strategy that will see to it that SAPS employee’s needs are addressed in a sustainable and effective manner. As I conclude, I would like to say it is my wish that at the end of this three[1]day workshop we would have met the objectives of this workshop and emerge with interventions that are mainstreamed and streamlined into the organisational strategic direction and a model that is fit for an organisation of SAPS size and mandate. Once again, I would like to reiterate that you are all welcome. I look forward to our fruitful deliberations. Thank you for your attention!
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