Advocate Fadzayi Mahere calls out Chihuri, says he should not blame public for police corruption
Lawyer and Human rights activist Advocate Fadzayi Mahere has said that ZRP Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri should blame the public for police corruption. The police are supposed to uphold the law and there is no excuse that justifies their conduct when they engage in corruption. Says Mahere:
1.Commissioner General Chihuri admits the Police are corrupt but blames it on the public! No sir, the Police are meant to uphold the law, period. There can be no excuse for corruption by the Police. In fact, it’s criminal.
Mahere also challenged some of Chhuri’s assertions in justifying the presence of roadblocks such as the claim that the money realised from Roadblocks was “insignificant.” She says the police mount numerous roadblocks in order to collect money and that the money they realise from these roadblocks is actually 19 times what they were allocated by Treasury.
2.He said the money collected from road blocks is insignificant. No sir, $57 million is not insignificant. It’s 19 times more than your recorded allocation from Treasury. If it was insignificant there would be no roadblocks. The police are unable to attend to dangerous crime and accident scenes lamenting a lack of transport or resources but they are always able to set up roadblocks. This is because roadblocks raise money while other means of policing don’t. It should not be this way.
Finally, Mahere says the police should not use road blocks as a revenue source as they are not part of Zimra. She also challenges the source of Zimbabwe’s economic problems and puts the blame squarely on the government’s corruption and mismanagement of resources.
3. The Commissioner General states that the Police have no funding for uniforms and for their “projects”. So is fundraising at roadblocks the answer? Surely not. The Police have no legal mandate to raise funds in this way. This is the function of ZIMRA.
4. Sanctions are to blame for the economic woes, he says. No. The Government has failed to manage the economy. It has killed productivity and it is grotesquely corrupt. Where is the diamond money? How come those at the top did not face a drop in their lifestyle when the sanctions emerged? Why has agricultural productivity taken a nosedive? It’s a matter of regret that he’d elect to offer such an insufficient explanation for their combined failure to run things properly.
