Zimbabwe’s police chief says the authorities are ”dangerously underfunding” the police force, which does not have enough money to pay decent wages or buy new uniforms, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri told a parliamentary committee in the capital Harare on Tuesday that as a result morale in the police force was low and law enforcers are tempted to take bribes, the private Daily Mirror reported.
”Over the years we have been saying the same things over and over again… that we are dangerously underfunding the organisation and this has not been taken seriously,” Chihuri was reported as telling the committee.
”Now we have ordinance stores where we should be keeping materials, but they are empty,” he said.
He said the authorities had allocated the police force a fraction of their financial needs.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of an economic crisis marked by inflation of close to 360%, and acute shortages of foreign currency needed to pay for vital imports like fuel, food and medicine.
Prices in shops are going up every few days, and low-income earners are struggling to afford one square meal a day.
Chihuri said that the police force was currently receiving a ration of just 20 000 litres of fuel a month, when it needed 260 000 litres to run its fleet of 1 500 vehicles.
The police chief reportedly told the committee that low wages resulted in members of the police force accepting bribes of between 20 000 and 50 000 Zimbabwe dollars ($0,76 – $1,92) ”to buy cabbages for the family”.
The Daily Mirror said Chihuri lamented the lack of funds to buy new uniforms, saying it was like ”sending people to do work naked”. – Sapa-DPA