‘Police recruitment is a problem’

Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee for Defence and Internal Security ENOCH CHIHANA recently held talks with the Inspector General of Police for solutions to the rising crime and the way forward. Our reporter BONIFACE PHIRI caught up with him to hear what the two discussed. Excerpts:

Of late the country has witnessed a rise in violent crime which has resulted in loss of lives. How has your committee reacted to this?

This is indeed very worrisome and as chairperson of the defence and security committee I have been in touch with the IG over this so that he can tell me and the country what strategies he has put in place to ensure that people’s lives and property are secured. Personally, I have been moving around to check the security situation and what I see is quite shocking because mostly I come across police officers on patrol but without guns and one wonders how a security officer can control or deal with crime in this day and age without a gun. It is as if they have forgotten that criminals are even shooting armed officers let alone unarmed ones. This is posing a huge danger to the society.

What was your word to the IG in light of all this?

I advised the IG to be strategic by, among other things, ensuring that his officers mount roadblocks in areas they feel are vulnerable and secure resources for community policing groups such as mobile phone handsets. The police can reach an agreement with Airtel or TNM to provide them with the handsets to enhance communication between the police and the groups. Thirdly, I suggested to him that they need to establish a national hotline and all members of my committee are ready to lobby for more funding from the Minister of Finance.

But violent crime still seems to be on the rise; police officers are being shot dead, ordinary citizens are being brutally murdered or raped. Doesn’t this render your discussions fruitless?

Criminals are crafty at all times and this is why we have summoned the IG and his top officers so they can explain to us what they have done as regards what I told them.

Do you think the shoot-to-kill policy could be the lasting solution?

You cannot just have a policy of shoot-to-kill because my committee has observed that these things are emanating from several factors which the said policy alone cannot address. The recruitment process for police officers, for instance, is so lacking that the service has even recruited thieves and thugs. We have noticed that when recruiting these officers, there is no background check and to make things worse the training period is too short as it ranges from three to six months. You cannot churn out a fully baked police officer in such a short period. Imagine somebody today is a civilian but by December they are in a police uniform. It is very pathetic and self-destructive; how can one grasp all the courses a police recruit has to undergo such as psychology, discipline and many others that relate to their type of job within such a short time? We have even discovered that despite it being short, the recruitment process is highly nepotistic such that a senior officer can just pick up a drunkard who is loafing at his village and enrol him at the police training school. A police job is a calling and one should not be a police officer simply because there is nothing he could do, but one has to have the intention and will to join the service.

What is responsible for high incidences of corruption among police officers?

Firstly, I must agree with you that cases of corruption in the service are embarrassingly high. But we should understand that the officers are demotivated due to such factors as poor remuneration and housing. There are only 3 000 houses against 15 000 officers and this leaves them demotivated. The other factor is lack of discipline and it is no secret that a large percentage of the country’s police officers are highly undisciplined.

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