Racial quotas cost best candidate Hawks job; SAPS promotion scandals pile up

Solidarity obtained another favourable CCMA ruling against the South African Police Service (SAPS) within days over its promotion practices – this time after a candidate who fared best in the interview process was overlooked due to the application of racial quotas.

The CCMA found that SAPS’ treatment of Solidarity member Capt. Natasha Steyn again amounted to unfair labour practice and ordered the police service to pay her R543 672 – twelve months’ salary – as compensation.
These costs will, once again, have to be borne by the taxpayer.

Steyn applied for a lieutenant colonel position with the Hawks. In the interview process, she achieved the highest mark of all the candidates, with 82,66%, after which the provincial panel for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations unanimously recommended her for the position.

However, the national moderation committee reversed this recommendation and appointed a candidate who obtained only 71%. The reason given by SAPS for this was considerations related to national employment equity requirements – i.e. racial quotas.

Theunis van Staden, coordinator for SAPS and the public sector at Solidarity, says this matter deserves to be treated as a scandal.

“The Hawks as the unit that must investigate organised and serious commercial crime and corruption is currently facing a staggering 2 515 policing vacancies. Approximately 1 500 of these are investigative posts where experienced investigators, such as Capt. Natasha Steyn, are needed.

“Here she comes as the best candidate and gets 82,66%, so that the panel unanimously recommends her. A candidate with 71% nevertheless gets the job because SAPS wants to achieve a racial outcome and chooses to reject Steyn, as a white woman, based on her skin colour.

“This is what happens when racial quotas become more important than merit,” says Van Staden.

The CCMA explicitly pointed out in its ruling that section 15(3) of the Employment Equity Act prohibits rigid quotas. The ruling states that an employment equity plan may not be used as an absolute barrier to the promotion of someone from a non-designated group – in accordance with the settlement on racial quotas in the workplace that the government reached with Solidarity in 2023.

“This is exactly the danger that Solidarity has been warning about for years. Race becomes a box to be ticked, and merit, experience and, ultimately, service delivery must make way for it.

“In a police service that is supposed to protect crime-prone South Africans from violent crime, this is not only unfair to employees, but downright reckless,” says Van Staden.

The ruling comes a few days after Solidarity announced another favourable CCMA ruling on a SAPS promotion process. In this case, it was found that Capt. Christiaan du Plessis was unfairly disadvantaged in the promotion process for a station commander position.

Solidarity does not believe that the large number of similar rulings can any longer be dismissed as isolated errors or administrative slipups. Therefore, Solidarity demands personal accountability from panel members, moderation committees and other decision-makers responsible for promotion decisions that are found to be unfair or irrational.

“This cannot continue to work like a game with other people’s money and careers. When a panel or decision-maker disregards the rules, the police member loses years of career progression, and the taxpayer pays the damages.

“The people who made the decision are simply walking away in the meantime. This has to change. Solidarity will continue to take these cases, but we also want to see SAPS take action against the decision-makers behind these malpractices. Someone must eventually be held accountable,” says Van Staden.