There was excitement on social media at the weekend when a Twitter account purporting to be that of the Zimbabwe Republic Police was opened, but the cops have been quick to dismiss it as the work of mischievous and bogus people.
By Silence Charumbira
Running under the name Zimbabwe Rep Police and using the handle @ZRP_ZW the account has been churning out several tweets, claiming to be monitoring social media for persons of interest.
But police spokesperson, Senior Assistant Inspector, Charity Charamba was yesterday only ever too eager to distance the force from the account.
“We are not on Twitter,” she declared.
“We are actually launching our website sometime later this year,” she said.
“I am sure that account is manned by bogus officers.”
Several Zimbabwean government institutions hardly have websites or social media accounts, but even at the risk of being labelled technophobes, Charamba was happy to say ZRP did not have a Twitter account.
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Despite advances in technology, some police stations are still using typewriters in their charge offices. Several Zimbabweans in the past few days have apparently fallen for the bogus account congratulating the ZRP for being innovative.
The account even goes on to claim that it is there to investigate and monitor Zimbabweans on Twitter commonly referred to as Twimbos.
“Monitoring the online activities of the Zimbabwean community commonly known as #Twimbos Contact: +263 04 733033,” reads a statement on the account.
The ZRP account joins an ever growing list of spoof accounts on Twitter, which includes parody Zesa and ZBC accounts.
