EDITORIAL COMMENT
REVELATIONS by a Parliamentary Portfolio committee report that the country’s police force has been forced to scrounge and beg for a living makes sad reading.
The parlous state of affairs within the Zimbabwe Republic Police was revealed in a report on the 2021 National Budget which was presented last week in the National Assembly by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home Affairs led by Umzingwane MP Levi Mayihlome (Zanu PF) in a contribution to debate on the Finance Bill.
Among the shocking revelations in the report, the committee pointed out that police officers were going to the extent of begging for food from communities to make ends meet.
“Travelling and subsistence (T and S) allowances for the police was last paid in 2008 or thereabouts,” Mayihlome said.
“Individual policemen and women are, therefore, subsidising the government programmes as they use their own money to travel and feed themselves while carrying out official work to complete investigations, hence the tendency to feed from the community,”
The irony of this report could hardly be sharper given that the revelations are coming at a time the Zimbabwe government has been waxing lyrical about eradicating corruption.
It boggles the mind how the government expects to stem graft when the police force, which is supposed to be spearheading the fight against corruption, is grossly underfunded.
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This was the point which was driven home by the committee.
“It is no wonder, therefore, that cases of illegal mining, traffic offences and illegal border crossing continue to increase because of poor equipment and poor conditions of service. “Police must be efficient, effective, swift and courteous.
“This can only happen if they are equipped, looked after and well-trained,” the committee observed in its report.
Adding to the embarrassment is the report’s findings that the police force, which is supposed to enforce COVID-19 safety regulations, does not have adequate personal protective equipment for its own staff.
This raises questions on government’s sincerity in combating the pandemic when it cannot even provide adequate material for the police force, which is on the frontline of the fight against curbing the scourge.
The failure to fund the police force could bring about a return to the dark days where corruption and bribery on the highways had become commonplace among traffic police.
A similar tale of woe for the army was revealed by the same committee.
It exposed governments’ failure to address the plight of soldiers by not providing essentials that include medical aid and allowances, as well as adequate food rations.
The committee warned that the dilapidated equipment was a threat to national security. It is baffling that government boasts of stabilising the economy when it is failing to provide basic necessities for the country’s security forces.
Government’s negligence in this regard threatens not only the fight against corruption but the security of the nation as a whole.
Finance minister Mthuli Ncube must man-up and resource all government departments and workers. Otherwise the Finance minister will soon become a threat to national security.
