Zimbabwe’s police chief said his force is starved for funds and lacks basic equipment to carry out its job, a local newspaper reported on Wednesday.
”We as police are at a minimum in terms of resources,” the private Daily Mirror quoted the police commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, as saying.
Chihuri told a parliamentary committee on defence and home affairs that the police force was given Z$1,4-billion ($5,6-million) this year but the money ran out in a month.
”We had to make an urgent appeal to government saying they have to give us money or we close shop and stop operating, and we were given Z$15-billion,” the state-run Herald newspaper quoted him as saying.
The police boss said the criminal investigations department (CID) was operating with makeshift equipment, or none at all.
”The CID needs basic equipment like brushes, rape kits and DNA testing equipment,” Chihuri told the Daily Mirror.
”In most cases we end up using mechanical evidence rather than scientific evidence, which is more reliable.”
Zimbabwe’s police force, often accused of brutalising civilians during protests, is one of various state departments bearing the brunt of the country’s economic crisis.
Police officers often use commuter buses or cycle or walk to crime scenes as police stations either do not have cars or fuel to run the few available vehicles.
They were dealt a further blow when a British vehicle manufacturer stopped supplying them with spares following an embargo by Zimbabwe’s erstwhile partners in the West.
The Southern African country is in the throes of economic crisis characterised by record inflation that peaked at nearly 1 200% in April and chronic shortages of fuel and basic foodstuffs. — Sapa-AFP