The rank insignia of a police sergeant of the South African Police Service (Saps). Picture: Gallo Images/Roger Sedres
It’s normally something you’d be proud of as a nation: one of our common South African expressions has “gone viral” getting extensive coverage by a major international news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP).
This week, the agency informed the world about the real meaning of our phrase “I need a cool drink”, when uttered by a cop at a road block. The report describes the phrase, along with its accompanying “So what do we do?”, as being uttered by a gum-chewing cop, slouching against a stopped car.
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Across the road was parked a police vehicle, emblazoned with the number for the “anti-corruption hotline”.
AFP said that in 2019, a Transparency International survey found one in four people in Africa had paid a bribe in the previous year.
It added: “South Africa is no exception. In a country with one of the highest crime rates in the world, police have a reputation for being as ineffective as corrupt.”
Nor is pay an issue, because constables earned up to R213 000 a year in 2018, and warrant officers can make almost twice as much.
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“It’s simply opportunistic tendencies from some people wanting more,” an officer with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate told AFP on condition of anonymity.
We all know this and have known for years that most of our cops – both national and local – are lazy, badly trained and on the take … whether from motorists at road blocks; criminals wanting investigation dockets to disappear; right up to the highest levels where probes into well-known names never go anywhere.
This disturbing picture, now broadcast to the world, will hit us where it hurts – in the pocket.
Tourists, spending precious foreign currency, are unlikely to be tempted by a place where their lives and property may be at risk. Nor are investors who can create the jobs we need so badly.
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