The ManicaPost
THE recent pronouncement by ZRP urging traffic police officers manning roadblocks and several checkpoints to change their behaviour and do away with corruption is commendable.
During the old order, traffic police officers had literally became a nuisance on the highways as they discharged their duties with reckless abandon.
Instead of serving the travelling public by taming the traffic jungle, the cops had gone corrupt to the core.
Their attitude was way below expected standards. It had turned into free-for all.
Bribery had become rampant while un-roadworthy vehicles plying routes at ease after greasing the palms of a corrupt lot.
There were well defined corruption syndicates.
For one to join the traffic unit money had to exchange hands within the rank and file of the police force and several cases came out in the open.
Then, traffic enforcement was seen as a get-rich-quick avenue with lucrative benefits.
With the ushering of the new dispensation which quickly brought order on the highways, motorists were left a relieved lot.
Cases of bribery disappeared.
Some months down the line, die-hard criminals who are still working in the police traffic units have began showing their true nature.
They feel relaxed and are now slowly mutating back to their old criminal ways of corruption.
Cases of cops demanding bribes at check points are now resurfacing.
If this trajectory is not arrested in its infancy, the cancer will quickly spread and we risk returning to the old rogue ways.
It is refreshing to note that commanders in the police force have quickly picked up the worrying trend and have put mechanism to deal with it.
Elsewhere in this issue we carry a story in which Officer Commanding Police in Manicaland, Commissioner Wiklef Makamache said senior police officers are on high alert across the province to check whether traffic cops are discharging their duties professionally.
Of note, he underlined the fact that junior officers must conduct themselves well according to policy, insisting that they should go back to basics.
Comm Makamache added that those found behaving to the contrary and putting the name of police into disrepute will be charged accordingly.
This must not target traffic police officers only but the entire police force.
Good deeds come from above and we urge the police commanders themselves to discharge their duties well and set a good example to the juniors.
They say fish rot from the head.
One way of checking whether police officers are discharging their duties well is by empowering members of the public.
Citizens must have at their disposal hotlines to which they quickly make calls and report offending cops.
Examples must be set on those found guilty so that those left in the force quickly align themselves to the on-going rebranding exercise of the police.
Great strides have been made to correct the police’s battered image but undesirable traits that are slowly creeping back have a net effect of taking the progress some steps backwards.
The police service charter is the guiding document that dictates how cops discharge their duties and if it is followed religiously, our police will find its footing again and reclaim the confidence of the people.
