While he main­tains that the well-be­ing of po­lice of­fi­cers is crit­i­cal for their or­gan­i­sa­tion’s crime-fight­ing suc­cess, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is urg­ing of­fi­cers not to abuse their sick leaves and to re­port to du­ty as ex­pect­ed.

Alexan­der, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, made the call as he re­ferred to ef­forts to ab­sorb Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs) in­to the wider TTPS.

He not­ed that as con­sul­ta­tions on the ab­sorp­tion ex­er­cise con­tin­ue with act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin and of­fi­cials from the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), it was im­por­tant that all of­fi­cers recog­nise the se­ri­ous­ness of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

With­out re­fer­ring to any spe­cif­ic in­ci­dents or con­cerns or the num­ber of of­fi­cers that have been abus­ing sick leaves, Alexan­der said that crime-fight­ing re­mained a top pri­or­i­ty, and the mo­ti­va­tion of po­lice of­fi­cers is crit­i­cal to achiev­ing se­cu­ri­ty ob­jec­tives.

“Don’t run from the job. The coun­try’s de­pend­ing on you, the na­tion’s de­pend­ing on you. Don’t run, stand up and let’s fight this to­geth­er,” he said.

Alexan­der sug­gest­ed that of­fi­cers who had out­stand­ing med­ical cer­tifi­cates be brought be­fore a board so that they may be as­sessed.

“It can­not be we are bring­ing in peo­ple who are on ex­tend­ed sick leave for no ap­par­ent rea­son and who have oth­er is­sues. We need to know their sta­tus be­cause they are count­ed as be­ing on the strength of the po­lice ser­vice, but they are not ac­tive.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed an of­fi­cial of the TTPS cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit yes­ter­day re­quest­ing the num­ber of po­lice of­fi­cers who were on leave but was told that the in­for­ma­tion would take some time to source.

Re­fer­ring to his own ex­pe­ri­ence as a po­lice of­fi­cer in op­er­a­tional units, Alexan­der added that he hoped that of­fi­cers would be mo­ti­vat­ed to main­tain close ties with the com­mu­ni­ties they serve to keep “con­trol of the streets”.

He said such a strat­e­gy would be use­ful in crime sup­pres­sion ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ben­jamin: Of­fi­cers fal­si­fy­ing sick leaves will face dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice agreed that of­fi­cers should not feign ill­ness to avoid work, but did not say whether this was a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern with­in the TTPS.

He said that mech­a­nisms were in place to en­sure that of­fi­cers–once proven they fal­si­fied a sick leave–would face dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

“We have al­ways looked at that as a very se­ri­ous thing and I think of­fi­cers on a whole would recog­nise that when sit­u­a­tions come when we have to take a tough stance or ap­proach like that and re­alise that sick leave has a part to play in your fu­ture, it sends a strong sig­nal that you need to show up to work.

“Don’t take sick leave as if it’s nor­mal va­ca­tion leave. But, nev­er­the­less, I am say­ing that un­less it’s proven, there are of­fi­cers who un­der­stand the se­ri­ous­ness of this and are sin­cere when they say they are sick. If not, those who are found want­i­ng will be dealt with, with a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach.”

Po­lice of­fi­cers are en­ti­tled to 14 days of sick leave per year.

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 90 (1) of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions 2007, any of­fi­cer who seeks an ex­ten­sion of their sick leave and are in the coun­try should, “ap­ply to the com­mis­sion­er in writ­ing and the ap­pli­ca­tion shall be sup­port­ed by a med­ical cer­tifi­cate is­sued by a du­ly qual­i­fied med­ical prac­ti­tion­er, a du­ly qual­i­fied med­ical prac­ti­tion­er at­tached to the Ser­vice or the du­ly qual­i­fied med­ical prac­ti­tion­er in the med­ical in­sti­tu­tion where the of­fi­cer has been treat­ed and who treat­ed the of­fi­cer”.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, pres­i­dent of the TTPSS­WA act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son said while of­fi­cers were with­in their rights to take sick leave, he agreed with calls for them to re­port for du­ty once they are well enough to do so.

“Our reg­u­la­tions cater for the dif­fer­ent type of leave, but if you are not ill and you are able-bod­ied and strong, we will en­cour­age you to come out and do what you need to do, be­cause mem­bers of the pub­lic are high­ly de­pen­dent on what you bring to the ta­ble every day.”

Dick­son added that Alexan­der’s sug­ges­tion of hav­ing a board in place to as­sess the health of of­fi­cers on ex­tend­ed sick leave was al­ready in place.

“It is just to make sure it is done more con­sis­tent­ly over time,” he said.

Un­der Sec­tion 91 (4) of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions 2007, the com­mis­sion­er has the pow­er to send a no­tice or­der­ing an ill of­fi­cer to ap­pear be­fore a med­ical board.

The reg­u­la­tions al­so al­low the com­mis­sion­er to pub­lish the names of of­fi­cers who are re­quired to ap­pear be­fore a med­ical board.

Of­fi­cers who have not ap­peared be­fore the med­ical board with­in one month of the pub­li­ca­tion are con­sid­ered to have aban­doned of­fice.

Once an of­fi­cer ap­pears be­fore a med­ical board and is found to be suf­fer­ing from a con­di­tion which ren­ders him un­fit for du­ty, he can be grant­ed sick leave with full pay for a pe­ri­od of six months.

Af­ter this pe­ri­od, the of­fi­cer can be grant­ed va­ca­tion leave once el­i­gi­ble.

If af­ter a pe­ri­od of sick leave and va­ca­tion leave, the of­fi­cer is still un­fit for du­ty, they could be ter­mi­nat­ed from the job.

Dick­son al­so said he was un­able to pro­vide any fig­ures on how many of­fi­cers were on sick leave.