adminThese include buses, kombis, taxis and commercial illegally operating private cars. There are also cases of some vans (bakkies) that carry paying passengers from certain rural areas to urban centres fairly regularly. Some of these are fitted with benches for the convenience of their clients.
The ZRP traffic section deals with these various categories of road traffic including in a few instances, donkey-drawn scotch carts and quite regularly, huge articulated trucks.
Motor cycles and bicycles are also a part of the road traffic the police handle and so are ordinary pedestrians albeit in a rather insignificant way in terms of numbers.
In their everyday operations, the ZRP traffic police look for the following: unlicensed drivers, unlicensed motor vehicles, unroadworthy vehicles, stolen vehicles, wanted law-breakers, law-breaking vehicles, contraband goods, drugs and important road motor-traffic equipment used by especially commercial vehicles, its non-availability being an offence.
The equipment includes triangle traffic reflectors and fire extinguishers. They look also for whether or not the vehicles’ indicators, hooter, windscreen wipers, headlights and parking lights work properly.
In kombis, buses and taxis, traffic police may look for a few more legal requirements such as operational permits, whether or not the vehicle is not over-loaded, its route permit and even whether it is within its required time schedule.
Kombi operators, however, complain that some ZRP traffic police officers do not issue “tickets” when they come across one or more of these offences but demand to be paid cash or else the offending vehicle would be taken to the Vehicle Inspection Department (VID).
To avoid their vehicles being taken to the VID where they would most probably undergo minute inspection, resulting in loss of time and, thus, of revenue by the operator, the drivers pay the traffic cops but are not given receipts for the money paid.
The practice has become so common that it must be very hard, if not actually impossible, to operate profitably any kombi anywhere in Zimbabwe these days.
The writer of this opinion article has on three or so occasions travelled by kombi to Plumtree from Bulawayo and back. On one occasion, there were five roadblocks, and at every one of them the kombi crew had to pay some hard cash to the ZRP traffic cops.
On two trips, there were three such roadblocks and at both of the trips, to and from, the kombi crews coughed up some cash which was discreetly given to the ZRP personnel behind the kombi.
The practice is so rife along the country’s major roads that many private motorists have at one time or another experienced it. The ZRP is supposed to be a highly reputable national law enforcement government arm operating under the Home Affairs Ministry. It must command two most important qualities — credibility and respectability.
A few years ago, the ZRP launched its service charter announcing the force’s highly plausible aims and objectives. The high quality of its services rings throughout the statement, so does the message about its delivery.
The actions of the forces, traffic section, however, create a most unfortunate credibility gap in the ZRP’s publicly pronounced mission statement.
The forces’ criminal section, particularly that which handles theft involving burglary, arms and other types of violence, seems to be acquitting itself fairly well in relative terms.
This particular section appears to be having its nose very well close to the ground if media reports about arrests it makes are something we can use to gauge its efficacy.
That apart, the ZRP’s traffic section’s duty to create an environment that reduces the incidence of anti-social incidents such as road accidents is compromised by its corrupt practices stated above.
Instead of apprehending unlicensed drivers, or impounding unroadworthy or unlicensed vehicles, some ZRP traffic officers demand bribes and the leave offenders well alone. That is bound to increase the incidence of road traffic accidents in Zimbabwe.
I believe that appropriate ZRP authorities are very much aware of this unfortunately corrupt practice in the police force but are unable to eradicate it root, stem and branch.
We mush admit that in many cases corruption is caused by acute need. In the case of security forces, that acute need may be caused by poor remuneration. In certain cases, sheer greed may be the causal factor. In a quite large number of cases, reckless expenditure does lead to corrupt practices. Police remuneration must be urgently improved.
There are cases where some people fall prey to massive temptation by what we may aptly term agents of evil who confront those they wish to corrupt with cardboard boxes full of banknotes.
Facing that type of temptation, the tempted yield. In the ZRP traffic case, however, the motorists are not the tempters or temptresses. They are instead pressured by circumstances some of which are however, not beyond their legal power.
Zimbabwe has an anti-corruption body to which, I think reports about corruption can or should be made. The body should on its own investigate corruption matters that feature prominently nationally and submit reports to the appropriate authorities as is stipulated in its mode of operation.
The anti-corruption body should be given not only investigative but also powers to arrest or summon suspects and hand them to the courts with or without the consent of the ZRP.
That position could make it possible for the anti-corruption body – the Anti-Corruption Commission of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) to deal with cases without fear or favour throughout commerce, industry and government et al.
If the ACCZ already has such powers and responsibilities, why does it not act with particular reference to the matter under discussion?
Whatever the reason is, Zimbabwe’s motoring public deserves to be protected from unscrupulous ZRP traffic sections elements.
Meanwhile, it is important for the ZRP senior officers, those responsible for taking decisions, to take the force’s various publics seriously. Corrective measures are necessary lest we ask the same question that was posed by that great Roman statesman, Juvenal, shortly before he died in AD 130:Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodies? (But who is to guard the guards themselves.)
l Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a Bulawayo-based retired journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or on email [email protected]
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Bongani Ndlovu