Johannesburg - The IFP in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature has welcomed the increase of the police’s danger allowance from R400 to R700 and has called on the government to review police salaries in their entirety.
The party in the province said the recent increase in the danger allowance for members of the SAPS showed that the government does have money to spend.
"While we understand the economic situation faced by our country, the IFP is concerned about the salaries paid to police officers. These officers face the mammoth and dangerous task of keeping citizens safe on a daily basis. There is no excuse for not increasing police officers’ salaries while the government has, on numerous occasions, spent billions of rands bailing out failed SEOs like Eskom, SAA, and the SABC," the party said.
This comes after the Competition Commission slammed the unjustifiable price increases on some of the most basic food items, such as bread and cooking oil.
"As South Africans tried to recover from the negative economic impact of Covid-19, the prices of sunflower oil, white and brown bread, and maize meal were "opportunistically" and "unjustifiably" increased from January to December 2022," the commission said on Tuesday.
These findings were contained in the latest "Essential Food Price Monitoring (EFPM) Report", released by the Competition Commission on Tuesday.
The IFP said police should be protected and given enough resources to help fight the scourge of crime, which has seen an increase in violent crimes in recent months.
"Further, police officers must be provided with enough resources to perform their duties, including improving dilapidated police stations."
"Failure to improve salaries for police officers could result in them being tempted to participate in criminal activities. Poor salaries could also discourage those who might be considering a career as police officers. Police salaries must be attractive so that South Africans view joining the SAPS as a viable career," the party said.
Last year, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) said it investigated 14 police member suicides in the 2020/2021 financial year.
A senior police officer who cannot be identified told the Weekend Argus that many officers became depressed due to the slow pace of moving up the ranks and the fact that they had not seen a pay increase since 2018.
The Star