GAUTENG. – The police service received a total of 1 049 998 applications in the current recruitment process. Responding to claims circulating on social media that the current group of new police recruits consists exclusively of black applicants, police said the composition of the group reflects the large difference in the number of applications received from the different population groups.
Brig. Athlenda Mathe, police spokesperson, said of the applications 1 079 were white applicants, 3 047 Indian applicants, 53 797 coloured applicants, while the overwhelming majority of applications came from the black population group. Of the applicants with valid driver's licences who received preference, 556 were white, 1 722 Indian, 11 743 coloured and 291 591 black applicants. The SAPD emphasises that the composition of the new group is not the result of a decision to exclude any population group, but the result of the applicant pool and the prescribed recruitment and selection process.
The service encourages young people from all population groups to take advantage of future recruitment opportunities and said targeted outreach activities will also be undertaken to encourage communities that are currently underrepresented to consider the police as a career.
This article is an automatic English translation of a Nuusflits article originally published in Afrikaans. Read the Afrikaans original.
