HOME AFFAIRS co-minister Theresa Makone has defended the move by police officers who are not declaring their assets saying it was unfair for them to be forced to do so when no such pressure was being exerted on other professionals like teachers.
Report by Moses Matenga
Police officers have come under fire for allegedly possessing assets that do not match their salaries, amid reports that senior officers were running most commuter omnibuses in Harare.
“Why make demands for police to declare their assets if others can’t? Politicians are not declaring their assets despite that there is a position that MPs must declare their assets. I and a few others did that,” said Makone in an interview with NewsDay in the capital last week.
“There are teachers who can’t declare their assets to explain their properties from their $250 salaries. It’s not fair to say only police should declare their assets.”
Last year, Harare City Council officials made claims that at one point, more than 24 kombis belonging to an assistant commissioner were impounded in central Harare.
Police officers, particularly those in the traffic section, were last year labelled the most corrupt in the region by the Anti-Corruption Trust (ACT) of Southern Africa.
“Using proceeds of corruption, police officers bought vehicles and commuter omnibuses of their own which operate hassle-free and some have bought houses, to name but a few . . . The findings also suggest that traffic officers share their daily bribe takings with their bosses in offices, failure of which they risk being transferred to non-lucrative assignments,” the ACT report read .
