Journalism graduate Kelebogile Chokoe, 27, shifts her six-month-old daughter from her right hip to the left hip. Thursday dragged as she and thousands of others made their way to the provincial police offices off Empire Road in Joburg.
They were there to apply for jobs.
By 10am the sun was out in full force in the city centre, but applicants for the police training academy were not deterred as they arrived in throngs to hand in their CVs.
The police are looking to recruit 12,000 officers by the end of the year which, according to defence & military veterans minister Thandi Modise, will help bolster “stressed” units in the force. In a media briefing last month, Modise said the report on the July unrest pointed to some shortcomings.
Many handing in applications on Thursday were there because they could not find other work.
Chokoe graduated in 2020 and was working towards an advanced diploma when she was forced to drop out because of a lack of finances. She owes her college more than R30,000.
When she saw the police were recruiting she decided she could work there, hoping eventually to become a spokesperson.
Thepiso Mofokeng, 24, from Orange Farm, was filling out his form — given to him by the recruiter officers at the back of the queue. He qualified as a mechanical engineer after completing his apprenticeship last year.
“I went into the degree thinking it was going to be easy to find work, but many people [from his class] are struggling to get a job.”
Also in the queue was Mosebyadi Tau, who works in the city. At 48 she missed the 18-30 age limit for applicants, but her 21-year-old son and some of her neighbour's children are the right age.
She sat under the shade of a street seller’s gazebo as she waited for her son, who cannot afford to study.
“We are trying to get jobs for our children,” Tau said.
A street seller who was doing a roaring trade said the queues were the same every year, except for the past two when Covid-19 prevented recruitment. He has been based at the same spot for 13 years.
By noon on Thursday, the queue had grown and was snaking down the road.
As traffic backed up along Empire Road, police tried to discourage applicants from driving to the headquarters.
• 34.9%: SA's official unemployment rate
• 7.6m: The number of unemployed people looking for work
• 41.5%: The official unemployment rate among black African women
• 0.3%: How much the informal sector employment increased by in the third quarter of 2021.
— UNEMPLOYMENT STATS
A security guard, who did not want to be named as he is employed, had also handed in his application.
“Many people you see here have differing degrees. They are desperate for work and this job comes with many perks.”
Successful applicants will enter a learning programme for 24 months: 12 months at the academy and 12 in the workplace.
In his state of the nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa said staffing of the public order policing unit would be brought to an appropriate level.
“We will make resources available to recruit and train an additional 12,000 new police personnel to ensure that the SAPS urgently gets the capacity it needs.”
He said the report into the July unrests concluded that police operational planning was lacking.
“There was poor co-ordination between the state security and intelligence services, and police are not always embedded in the communities they serve”.
In his 2022/23 budget speech, minister of finance Enoch Godongwana added R8.7bn to the police budget, allocating R1bn to implement personnel reforms.
Modise, at the media briefing of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster on February 27, said SAPS is on a drive to recruit BSc graduates and those from other fields of study.
“We will ... ensure that we increase the strength of the police from 180,000 officers to service the county’s population of more than 60-million people.”
She said the trainees would bolster compromised departments such as public order police, detectives, family violence, child protection and sexual offences investigating unit, and the front-line at stations.
“Not only will the efforts of the police be bolstered to restore law and order in communities, but priority attention will also be given to the investigation of crimes against women, children, the elderly, and other vulnerable persons.”
Police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said the last recruitment process garnered around 507,000 applications which could not be filled because of Covid. She said they received around 500,000 applications each year.
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