Durban - The men and women in blue were celebrated in the province this week at the annual South African Police Service (SAPS) Provincial Excellence Awards, which were held at the Coastlands Hotel in Musgrave.
A few police officers stood out as they collected their awards and certificates for excellent work done throughout the year.
Among those was Detective Constable, Noluthando Sangweni, 37, who is part of the eThekwini District Task Team and stationed at the Inanda Police Station. Sangweni was the overall winner for the Detective and Forensic Services Employee of the Year level 5 to 7.
Speaking to the Sunday Tribune, she said she mostly dealt with murder cases. Sangweni joined the police service in 2012, having previously worked in the private sector. “I joined the police because my thought at the time was that I wanted a job that was permanent and provided me with stability, which the private sector couldn’t offer me at the time because there was a lot of contract work,” said Sangweni. She said, however, while she got the hang of things within the police service, she learnt to love her job.
“I was lucky to be trained by my mentor who I must mention, Captain Naidoo, who is based in KwaMashu Policing Precinct, for his teaching and training me on how to be a detective.
I call him my father because the policing job can be a very cold department, where when you arrive as a newbie, it’s almost like no one is there - you just have to figure everything out on your own but I think Captain Naidoo could sense my eagerness for wanting to be a detective and he took me under his wing. Till this day, he’s my go-to person within the job and vice-versa,” said Sangweni.
“I also want to thank Brigadier VJ Cele, who was very instrumental in my career growth. He actually believed I would one day walk away with an award for my work,” she said. Talking about her career highlights, she said she had attended a lot of crime scenes with dead bodies and recalled the one scene that stood out to her. “I once attended a crime scene where an elderly woman had been shot while shopping at a tuckshop. To me, it was very cruel that a woman would be shot on the road, in cold blood with eight bullets. I couldn’t fathom it.
I think I was surprised because we always deal with men being shot (which still doesn’t make any of the shootings justifiable) but to see a woman lying there like that, was incredibly scary to me.” She added that although the job may be hard at times, she tried to never get emotionally attached to any of her cases because she understood she had a job to do.
“Most of the time when I have seen a crime scene, I have a very deep sense of wanting to solve the crime. When you start a case from scratch until the end, you tell yourself that you want to see this through, no matter how long it takes. The more you understand a case the more exciting it gets,” said Sangweni.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE