By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE: Sergeant Dumsile Khumalo, the Secretary General of the Police Staff Association is now facing arrest after leading disgruntled law enforcers into a historic protest march in demand for a salary increment.

As exclusively reported by this Swaziland News on Monday evening, police officers eventually marched to the Prime Minister’s office on Tuesday morning, they are demanding their money meant to increase their salaries under Phase Two(2).

It has been disclosed that members of Executive Command have looted over R100million in monies meant to increase salaries for junior police officers, the money was misappropriated through the creation of over twenty(20)Deputy National Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners posts that are now redundant.

It has been disclosed that after creating the posts and falsely convincing King Mswati that they were benchmarking with the Southern African Development Community(SADC) standards, the Executive Command subsequently allocated themselves huge salaries that depleted the millions meant to increase salaries for junior officers:

Reached for comments, Sergeant Dumsile Khumalo confirmed that a warrant of arrest was being prepared against her, however, she declined to comment further and referred this journalist to the Police Spokesperson, Superintendent Phindile Vilakati.

“I am aware of the warrant of arrest, please contact the Police Spokesperson,” said the influential police officer.

But junior police officers who spoke to this Swaziland News on Wednesday warned the Police Executive Command against touching their leader Seargent Dumsile Khumalo.

“Nothing will happen to Madam Dumsile, if they arrest her we will forcefully release her ,wait and see.We are police officers and we want our money. This is not end, even if they can release this money under Phase Two(2), we want the other monies that disappeared under the Death Benefit Fund,” said a junior police officer.

Police Staff Association Secretary General Sergeant Dumsile Khumalo, a police officer based at Malkerns Police Station has been described by junior police officers as a human rights defender who has been advocating for the welfare of police officers since she joined the organization. 

“She is brave and powerful but she needs our support as police officers, we know the strategic places and individuals that we can target if they arrest her. We are working for this government and we know it’s operations,” said the police officer.

A questionnaire was sent to Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, however, she had not responded at the time of compiling this report.

Reached for comments, Sibusiso Nhlabatsi, a highly regarded human rights lawyer said the allegations suggesting that the police officer who led the protest might be arrested are misplaced adding that the law enforcers had a right to bargain collectively.

In terms of labour laws, collective bargaining refers to the negotiation of wages and other conditions of employment by an organized body of employees.

“Police officers have a right to collectively bargain for better terms and conditions of service.If the junior police officers are alleging that within their place of employment, there were different phases that were implemented and were not favorable to their working conditions, they have a right to confront the Minister responsible for police which is the Prime Minister. So there is no criminal offense when you say you are bargaining collectively for purposes of better terms and conditions of service. The Police Service Act established the Police Staff Association solely for such matters. So you cannot therefore say, when an employee raises grievances, it’s a criminal offense. If it can happen that a police officer gets arrested for collective bargaining, that would mean the country has reached a deep end,” said the human rights lawyer.