Byo police must clamp down on touts

WHEN one is living Bulawayo along Masotsha Ndlovu Extension, you turn to your right into the old Victoria Falls Road about 100 metres, there are hordes of people thumping down lifts to travel to various destinations along the highway up to the resort town (named by the Makololo Mosi oa Tunya).

At the turn-off there is a police checkpoint. What is happening at the spot where intending travellers wait for lifts is shocking. There are thugs who are erroneously called touts.

Whenever a vehicle approaches, they surround, no they literally besiege it, and they tell the driver to wait while they look for “customers”. These thugs charge their own fare different from the driver’s. The vehicle (both haulage trucks and private) gets full.

The thugs are given their “cut”. Both the driver and the passengers assume that all is fine. Cash or EcoCash the amount/ fare is far less than the driver expected. Then all hell breaks loose. The thugs

“charged” the passengers less than what the driver told them so that the car gets full quickly.

These thugs are invariably intoxicated from the morning till dusk. In-between their harassment of the public, they will be gambling and quarrelling. What is shocking is that without exception, there will be one or two police officers waiting to catch a lift to a checkpoint somewhere along the highway, but they turn a blind eye to the criminal acts of the thugs.

The officers are offered lifts free of charge and yet they don’t protect members of the public and even motorists who refuse to accede to the demands of the thugs. Some motorists drive off leaving intending travellers behind as a result.

And yet, as is common cause, the very same police officer gets red hot when they are deployed in the central business district, harassing and even beating up innocent citizens as if they have been commanded to do so when the opposite would be the case.

I grew up during the colonial era and I can tell readers without fear, favour or prejudice that although police officers of that era, both black and white, worked under a grossly unjust system, they knew the meaning and purpose of law and order.

What I have highlighted above would not happen while a police officer, black or white, stood idle by. Black officers, young and old, obeyed the order and command of white officers, young and old. Whether it was good or bad it worked in the sense that it produced the desired result of maintaining law and order. Now there is no racism and with it went law and order. Let us learn to tell ourselves the poignant truth.

The police in Bulawayo must do something to stop the sort of crime that is taking place. If the police don’t do that, they stand indicted for dereliction of duty.

For once they must leave CBD and the townships and attend to the periphery of the city.