One Tough Top Cop

Corrupt cops, beware! Joburg’s new sheriff, David Tembe, is determined to root out the rot and clean up the force.

- Aphiwe Boyce

THEY can be found all over bustling Johannesburg – the men and women in blue and brown, the city’s protectors who are all too often accused of sleeping on the job – or even worse, hassling and hustling for bribes from motorists.

But the city’s corrupt cops top new sheriff David Tembe’s most-wanted list. The tough-talking new chief of the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) is ready for action, he tells DRUM on his third day in office.

Mayor Herman Mashaba, he says, ordered him to make corruption his top priority. “He told me, ‘Tembe, whatever we do – the first priority is corruption. We won’t have money to employ people and buy uniforms if the metro police are corrupt. Our police are like shareholders in the JMPD and if they are corrupt they must go’.”

Not all the city’s cops are bad apples, he says, but those filmed taking bribes and photographed sleeping on the job are the ones people see on social media.

They are only about 5% of the department, he says. His job is to “take care of the 95% of good cops and reward them, and to [root out] the bad ones”.

He has appealed for community support in this battle. “If you find an officer sitting in a car and someone is at the window, you must know that something is going on. If you see the boot [of a metro police car] open, you must know they are hiding their number plates – those are signs of corruption.”

DESPITE his commitment to fighting corruption, his appointment as JMPD chief wasn’t welcomed by everyone. The Joburg ANC accused the DA-led administration of flouting recruitment processes.