POLICE officers must wear decent uniforms not the ones they are wearing. You see them in threadbare uniforms, tattered and sewn shoes. I am told, there are no uniforms at the Ordinance Office.
Another hurdle at most police stations is that they do not have vehicles, one good example being Rushinga Police Station in Mashonaland Central province.
The Rushinga policing area is very huge and close to Mozambique.
There are several cases of stocktheft, whereby livestock is stolen in Mozambique and sold in Zimbabwe.
At the porous borderline between Rushinga and Mafigu area, cattle rustlers are having a field day.
Rushinga police lack resources to trek these criminals. Their situation is compounded by the lack of a station vehicle.
The vexing question is why?
Government is busy buying new off-road vehicles for chiefs, but not capacitating people who should be maintaining peace in the country.
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Police officers are now being forced to find their own means to arrest criminals.
Policing is a constitutional mandate and that needs support from the government.
There is need for Rushinga police to do preventive patrols along the Zimbabwe and Mozambique borderline to curb rampant smuggling and cattle rustling.
To attend to crime scenes, police have to beg private motorists for transport.
In some cases, the poorly paid police officers go out of hand and use their own money to buy fuel so that they can attend crime scenes.
The other problem they face is taking accused persons to court. You see police officers in Rushinga begging motorists and public vehicles for transport to take the handcuffed suspects to Mt Darwin court.
Government should address this, otherwise the morale in the police force is very low, especially among junior members. - Alexio Rashirai Rushinga
