Cops pee, poo in public

ZIMBABWE believes it is all right for on-duty policemen to urinate and defecate in public places.

Deputy home affairs minister Obedingwa Mguni says there is no law to stop police officers from using the bush when there are no toilet facilities near the vast number of roadblocks they man.

Mguni told The Senate this week that there were not enough ablution facilities near the roadblocks and as there was no legislation to prevent police from relieving themselves in public therefore, their actions were not illegal.

“We do not enforce anything which is not lawful and where we do not have an Act to act upon it, so we will act only when there is an Act that has been passed and is given to us to make the people act lawfully,” he said.

Police have powers to arrest ordinary people who urinate in public but who may pay a R70 fine.

Opposition Movement for Democratic Change Matabeleland Senator Sithembile Mlothswa told the Senate: “We see officers at roadblocks urinating and defecating in the open and affecting people by the nature’s smell.

“How do they apprehend the public?”

But, Mguni said, the police who do it, are on duty.

Zimbabweans often say, with irritation, that they have to endure more roadblocks per square kilometre then anywhere else in the world.