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Johannesburg - The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) on Friday said it would approach police watch dog Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) to complain about the conduct of police officers who arrested the union’s three officials earlier this week.
In a statement after its central executive committee (CEC) meeting on Friday, Samwu said it was shocked at the “theatrical performance” of the officers who arrested its officials during the CEC meeting.
“We believe that this is political and that whoever is behind this used the police to disrupt our CEC so that the meeting cannot discuss serious issues faced by the union.
Samwu is a law abiding institution, we have on numerous occasions called for this matter to be concluded so that the union, in particular our members can finally get answers and justice.
“We, however, did not expect such drama from the police. We will, therefore, be approaching Ipid on the police conduct when they were effecting the arrests.
We believe that the manner in which they conducted themselves was in conflict with the law. As much as we will be cooperating with the investigations, the police should conduct their investigations within the ambit of the law,” Samwu said.
Samwu said it would keep an eye on the case involving the officials. The union said a forensic audit should immediately be undertaken.
“We also commit ourselves to ensure when the forensic audit is complete and implicates any present or past leaders or officials we will open a criminal case against those individuals and will ensure that in addition to criminal justice processes, we will recoup our members’ money from those,” Samwu said.
Samwu, South Africa’s largest municipal workers’ union, has been rocked by divisions and suspicions of corruption after an alleged disappearance of R136m from its coffers.
This has culminated in the emergence of a group calling itself the Save Our Samwu which has been demanding a forensic audit to uncover the alleged misappropriation of union funds.
