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Police staffers face music over email joke

Teresa Fischer (People's Post 4th May 2010)

DISCIPLINARY procedures are ongoing in the case of a police officer and two clerks suspended for forwarding an email containing a joke about President Jacob Zuma and ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.

Two of the three women are clerks at the Woodstock police station and the third is a police officer at the Paarl East station.

In the email, Zuma and Malema are superimposed on a poster for the movie “Bad Boys”. Zuma is carrying a showerhead.

Provincial police spokesperson Colonel Billy Jones confirms the women were suspended with pay on a charge of improper conduct while on duty. This is not a criminal charge.

Jones would not discuss who laid the complaint, saying this would form part of the disciplinary process.

He says members are “duly informed” of the email policy, which prohibits non-work-related emails.

Two police officers, who asked not to be named, were not surprised by reports of the suspension.

“It is a well-known policy. We are all aware of the policy regarding private emails.”

Asked whether they thought undue sensitivity regarding Zuma and Malema was the cause of the suspension, they say: “Politics is a no-go zone because the police are supposed to be apolitical. Rigid discipline is necessary in a semi-military organisation.”

Provincial secretary of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), Mncedisi Mbolekwa, says the union will defend the matter.

“The employees did not act with malicious intent and have shown remorse.”

Popcru would watch the matter with interest, particularly regarding who the complainant was and why the employees had been singled out.

“We doubt very much there is any employee who doesn’t send private emails. How do they implement and police this policy?”