The government might deny it, but it is an open secret that many members of the police force are demoralised and have had enough, opposition MP Gavin Gulia said in a statement yesterday.
Dr Gulia said it was not only he who knew this, but also other members on the opposition benches, as well as MPs on the other side of the house.
“There are various reasons and causes, but some police officers are leaving their jobs to find other employment before they complete their 25 years of service,” said Dr Gulia.
He said that some officers opted to complete their stint of service, but it was becoming next to impossible to persuade them to carry on serving after the 25-year period.
“This is not only happening within the junior ranks, but also with senior ranks, such as inspectors, who are an integral part of the machinery that is the Police Corps,” he said.
He also said that he personally knew of two police inspectors who were actively considering handing in their resignation in a matter of weeks.
Dr Gulia also said that new recruits were being drafted into the Corps after having graduated from university with a doctorate in law. “We run the risk that these new recruits serve the two-year mandatory term and then leave to pursue a profession as lawyers,” he said.
Dr Gulia said police officers were not being paid for extra hours worked and that on average, they had lost some Lm70 per year in wages, meaning the tax cut announced in the last budget was redundant.
He also said that the Corps was becoming too regimented. “I agree that a police force should be disciplined, but that does not mean that people should have to answer to written reports because they punch in two minutes late, as happened recently with an assistant police commissioner.”
Dr Gulia said that whatever the reasons for disgruntlement were, the government could not bury its head in the sand and must grab the bull by the horns and sort out the situation. “If the government denies what I have said, I challenge the powers that be to commission a fact-finding mission though an independent auditor to gauge the feelings of police officers,” he said.