Government reads out riot act

Stephen Mpofu
IT still sounds abundantly loud and clear the alarm, and warning, by the Government that symbols of the long arm of the law who run with the hares and hunt with the dogs or remain arms folded amid rises in various crime activities risk amputation.

The warning was implicit in an address by the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Kazembe Kazembe to police officers during this year’s ZRP Senior Officers’ Conference in Harare a few days ago.

He bemoaned the increase in road traffic accidents leading to fatalities, as well as a surge in robberies and stock thefts.

For instance, the minister said police monthly reports indicated that from January to August last year and January to August this year crime rose by 11 percent while traffic accidents increased by six percent with a total of 1352 people losing their lives.

But no precise reports of arrests and prosecution of those engaged in home breakages, or robberies, or negligent driving on the road resulting in life losses or serious injuries, or for rampant stock thefts depriving rural folk of draught power as well as milk, meat as well as income for their families.

But why the increased criminal activities on country roads and in cattle pens or pastures? Is police presence not visible in those areas where the crimes in point have been reported? On the other hand, why are criminal activities so rampant in urban areas where police presence resembles a clear sky?

Would anyone rightly be adjudged wrong to believe or suggest that some law enforcement agents sleep on the job from which they earn a living for their families and themselves, or that they connive with some workers to facilitate criminal acts?

The question immediately above happens to be written on the silent lips of many people who wonder why, for instance, probably the biggest heist in Zimbabwean history of US$4 million, could have taken place at a Bulawayo bank recently, and in broad daylight, without drawing the attention of law enforcement agents in uniform or plain clothes overseeing the maintenance of law and order in the city around the clock.

This pen fears — and no doubt many others do — that members of the general public might take the law into their hands under the belief, right or wrong, that law enforcement agents slumber on their jobs hence the rampant crimes reported above in this discourse.

This country’s law enforcement agents’ should be reminded of, and observe, the wise saying to the effect that “a stitch in time saves nine” to regain the trust and admiration of public for effective law and maintenance across our beloved motherland.

Implicit in the good Home Affairs Minister’s address to the police is a chilling message to God fearing Zimbabwean citizens as well as to bona-fide foreign residents here that if the rate of crime mentioned is not curbed, it will send a terrifying message to potential investors as well as to potential tourists that Zimbabwe is a no go country for business and they will remain close with the money that this country needs for our economic and social development to make vision 2030 and beyond a reality for all.