Investigating The Causes Of Resignations Of Detectives From The Criminal Investigation Division Of The Namibia Police Force In Windhoek

ABSTRACT

This study sought to investigate the causes of resignations and inter-ministerial transfers from the Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID); to determine the effects of resignations and interministerial transfers on service delivery in CID; to explore the security challenges posed by such resignations and inter-ministerial transfers to Namibia and to suggest ways of reducing the resignation of police officers from NAMPOL. This study adopted a qualitative research design and the instruments for data collection were a questionnaire and interviews. A sample size of 27 respondents provided answers to questions raised in the questionnaires and interviews. The respondents were drawn from various governments’ institutions, parastatals and private institutions that are currently employing former CID employees. This study revealed that the exodus of employees from NAMPOL in general and CID in particular is because of low remuneration and desire to pursue career development was one of the main contributing factors for high resignations from the CID. This study further revealed that work overload coupled with lack of remuneration for overtime work contributed to the decisions of resigning from NAMPOL by the employees who felt that the work they did was too much and the compensation for overtime work did not match the effort put in. The study recommends that the salaries and benefits of police officers working for NAMPOL to be increased to a competitive rate commensurate to security agencies like City of Windhoek Police. The study furthermore recommends that there is a need for NAMPOL to determine the actual workload in comparison with international benchmarks of performance to commissioned and non-commissioned officers so that the benchmark performances standard are available to measure the actual workload per employee needed for current and future recruiting purposes.