Police corruption: When the abnormal becomes normal

EDITOR — FOR once, Zimbabwe needs to stop burying the head in the sand when dealing with the nation’s number one enemy, corruption. Surveys have been conducted whose findings always point, bluntly so, that Zimbabwe is one of the most corrupt countries.

According to a survey conducted by Afrobarometer in May 2015, the majority of Zimbabweans perceives the police as the most corrupt institution in Zimbabwe.

The report says that one in four survey respondents, who had contact with the police, paid a bribe to obtain a service or to avoid problems.

Remember this is the same credible research institution, whose findings have always been prophetic.

Its researches include those it precisely predicted on the grand defeat of the MDC-T by Zanu-PF. One can, therefore, ignore Afrobarometer’s findings at own peril.

Indeed, corruption is one of the nagging problems that this country is grappling to curb, or at least reduce.

In the Global Corruption Perception Index released last year by Transparent International, Zimbabwe was ranked 154 out of 170 highly corrupt countries.

This is not good for the country if this ranking is anything to go by. Corruption, especially police corruption undermines public trust in the institution and it impairs effective enforcement of the law.

Zimbabwe is a country that is in desperate need of investors.

Unfortunately the much sought after investors look at these indices before pouring their money into any investment destination.

Therefore, the country cannot afford to lose investors because of few bad apples within the community.

Somebody somewhere has to come up with radical anti-corruption measures to purge this country of the vice.

But the question that begs an answer is; who can get rid of the vice?

Ordinarily one would say; the police of course, perhaps with the assistance of radical anti-corruption laws.

These laws are supposed to be put in place by the legislators.

Unfortunately, the recent revelations by one of the legislators, who happens to be the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Cde Obedingwa Mguni, shows that the nation is heading nowhere in regards to curbing corruption.

Cde Mguni told a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development last Monday, that he was inundated with requests from Members of Parliament who ask him to second their children and relatives to the traffic section of the police.

Get it right here, Cde Mguni referred to Members of Parliament in general not, Zanu-PF legislators per se, as some cyber trolls would want people to believe.

Corruption is a national scourge that does not need any political spin.

There are MDC-T legislators in Parliament and it is also a fact that some police officers are sympathetic to MDC-T.

Therefore, there is no party inclination in this issue and detractors must not divert attention away from the real issue that has corroded the nation.

It is unfortunate that the institutions that are supposed to be at the forefront of fighting corruption are, instead perpetrating it.

The big question then is; who will guard the guards?

The last time yours truly checked, the traffic cops’ salaries were not in any way different from those of their counterparts in other police units.

One wonders, therefore, why the so-called bigwigs want their children to be transferred to the traffic section.

These honourables must be told that the traffic section of the police is not a haven for criminals.

It is an open secret that the traffic cops use roadblocks to extort motorists.

The lawmakers are not lost to this fact, but still they want their children to go and join the corrupt bandwagon, kutumira vana kuhondo chaiko.

Their key duty as MPs is to make laws which they are peculiarly encouraging their children to violate.

There have been outcries, from across the political divide, over the omnipresence of the police on the roads.

Even Minister of Tourism, Engineer Walter Muzembi, lamented the police roadblocks which have increasingly become ubiquitous.

His main worry is the potential dent that the roadblocks can cause on tourism.

The tourists themselves have complained about same, for the umpteenth time. It took the President’s intervention for the police to scale down roadblocks.

However, the public must not celebrate much as the police are seemingly dodging compliance with the Presidential order through the use of slippery semantics.

The police said they had reduced police roadblocks to four per province, but spot checks would remain. It is the very spot checks that the motoring public and tourists have been complaining about.

Thus, they are the ones that must be reduced. Currently, there is a television series-like corrupt case in the courts where top police cops are implicated in a chain of corruption including extortion allegations.

If an agency that should ensure law and order is maintained in the country is led by corrupt leaders, then it is quite regrettable.

The fish always rot from the head and it is known that when you want to kill a snake, you do so by hitting its head. Those with ears have heard. Tafara Shumba