The Scourge of the C-Word

"Mapurisa. Mapurisa. Mapurisa."

This was the opening salvo by the Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, President Robert Mugabe at the just-ended ZANU-PF People's Conference in Gweru, as he decried the plague that now seems so cancerous, so endemic, so entrenched in the Zimbabwean policing veins that getting rid of it is just akin to killing the foundations of the police force itself.

And the president gave a practical example of the alleged misdeeds of police officers, especially on the road.

“Kumisa vanhu mumigwagwa. Mota yako haina mabreaks haungaende mberi. Kana uchida, bhadhara US$200 woenda,” he said. 

The president is also not happy with the moral decadence that has afflicted other government departments, and he mentioned the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority as another body that is failing the nation when it comes to corruption.

Such is the nature of our society today that virtually every office one approaches for a service, they have to fork out something to get served. Members of the public have been miffed at the seemingly endless queues at the passport offices, and the office of the Registrar General has been saddled with accusations of underhand dealings by its ground staff, who are said to delay procession of documents so they get the 'cut'.

Besides, the debate about the country's teachers getting 'incentives' for their exemplary service to the education of this country has never been solved. The teachers' salaries are supplemented by the parents themselves, most of whom are civil servants who draw their livelihood from the same government coffers the teachers are not satisfied with.

"Given that scenario, where then do the teachers think we will get the money to pay them from," asked one parent, who chose to remain anonymous. "Isn't it the case that civil servants are supposed to offer us government services for free, and they will be paid by the government? It really makes no sense that the teachers want to be treated like a government species more important than all other civil servants. I am a civil servant too, and my line of work forbids me to even think of engaging in demonstrations because I offer what they call an essential service to the public. Why then should I pay more to the teachers; isn't that a form of corruption in itself?"

And it is a valid question – there is no doubt about the enormity of the work done by teachers in educating the nation. Their efforts are one of the main reasons why Zimbabwe is perched at the pinnacle of the literacy rate in Africa. But should the government treat its teachers like sacred cows and allow them to fleece hard earned cash from parents and guardians of students, lest the teachers stay away from their responsibilities? Sadly – given that the Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, David Coltart has poured cold water on the scrapping of the incentives scheme from schools, arguing that government had no money to pay its workers a better salary – the vicious cycle of incentives seems to be here to stay.

There have also been cases where hopeful home seekers have been forced to fork out a lot more for housing stands by local authority officials. President Mugabe also decried corruption higher up the power rungs in ministries. He gave instances of a conversation which he had with former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki, who told him that potential investors to the country were being asked to part with amounts as much as $5million to get operating licences in Zimbabwe.

Interestingly, when the president spoke about the moral decadence in the Zimbabwean society nowadays, most people chose to turn a blind eye to their own vagaries and the excesses of their fellow citizens, and instead chose to focus on what they perceived as rampant corruption in the police force. Never before in the history of the independent ZRP has there been such spotlight on the men and women in uniform – and for such wrong reasons too. Now every person, including those with an axe to grind with the police, have jumped onto the bandwagon of blaming the police for all their troubles. 

Granted, it is true that the police officers should be the last people to be caught engaging in corruption, as they have the paramount task of making sure that everybody else toes the law line. Long before president Mugabe made his address against corruption, the police had been on the forefront of weeding out elements with corrupt tendencies in their midst; anti-corruption crack teams have been set up in police provinces like Support Unit, Harare, Bulawayo, to mention a few. 

The Commissioner General of Police, Cde Augustine Chihuri, was realistic about the question of corruption when it was thrown at him by Average Joe in a recent interview. Not that it was the first time for Commr Gen Chihuri to address the nation on underhand dealings in the law enforcement agency – the man has been on record castigating corruption and urging his foot soldiers to remain morally upright in the face of a challenging economic environment where their pay is little and many a myriad times they will come across law offenders loaded with cash and are not loathe to tempt a supposedly straight police officer with a few wades of cash to escape the law.

But when Average Joe got an opportunity to divert the Commissioner General from his swamping duties, there was one question that was simply dying to be asked.

Why is the problem of corruption persisting after all the measures taken by the police command to bury the sacrilege?

"The problem of corruption is persisting because of the sanctions," said Commr Gen Chihuri. "To be honest with you, I'm not happy with what the police officers are getting; it's too little."

And before we asked, the answer was no; not every police officer is corrupt.

"Out of 41,000 police officers, 123 have been arrested on corruption charges. Of these, 32 have been convicted. It is now for other people to judge whether this is a massive ratio."

Having said that, the top cop went on to the heart of the matter. "The fact that police officers are getting little in terms of salaries is not an excuse for them to be corrupt. Not at all. As a diligent person, I don’t want to see any form of corruption at all in the force. One corrupt act by one police officer in one act to much for me."

The irony of which the Commr Gen wishes would not be lost on police officers, whose proverbial long arm catches every law offender, despite age, race, colour, creed on life status. People are arrested because they break the laws of the land, and strictly for that; if the officers lend a sympathetic ear to a thief who claims he was hungry when he snatched a purse from its rightful owner, then they might as giving up the job, because they would end up with nobody to arrest – every other law offender might have a logical reason for their misdeeds. Which would render the purpose of the laws redundant. 

According to the Commr Gen, the same laws of strict liability that apply to everybody else do apply to the same police who administer them. If they are caught on the wrong side of the law – corruption in this case – they do face the same treatment faced by criminals, sometimes it's even worse, because of their societal status. 

Because, to put in the words of the police chief, members of the public demand and deserve their full measure of service; whether the police officer is working on an empty stomach, is having to use his feet to travel great distances because he has no other faster mobile means or is being forced to sleep in a government cabin where he can study astrology all night, is neither here nor there. All the public knows is that the police are there to help them – without excuse.

At a recent end-of-year shindig for Masvingo Province, Deputy Commissioner General (Human Resources), Levie Sibanda even exhorted spouses of police officers to be upright in themselves and raise alarm with the right authorities if their husbands or wives bring home provisions or cash that cannot be explained.

"We appreciate the support we are getting from our spouses," said Dep Commr Gen Sibanda, in another show of prove that the police is the only government organisation that has chosen to publicly fight corruption. "But, please do not support us to be corrupt. If your spouse brings home cash whose origins are not clear, then you should report them," he said to a hall full of people smiling at him; obviously the spouses were wondering how possible it was to do the right thing and report suspected cases of corruption. 

The same plea could be asked of the spouses of workers everywhere else outside police circles, and the response would be the same: Refuse commodities acquired corruptly by their better halves? That can be done, and people will cite the example of everybody's favourite football coach, Norman Mapeza, who refused to even touch the money he was offered when he took his Zimbabwe National team to Asia for friendly matches he had no idea were being used as money-making cauldrons by some people.

But then, choosing not to be part of the corruption rot is one thing – the question is how can you report a dearly beloved for bringing home suspicious cargo? That was the question that must have been in Mapeza's mind when he returned home after the eye-opening excursion the lands of the far east – should he or should he not report what he had witnessed in Asia? And possibly ruin a lot of careers in the process? It was a tough proposition, which Mapeza chose not to be part of. And for that he was banned from football for six months, without the option of a fine.

By offering bribes to police officers to evade arrest, are they aware that corruption and bribery is as much a crime to members of the public as it is to police officers? Are the members of the public aware that they stand to suffer the same fate as the police officers they taint, or they just think that if they offer a bribe, it is only the police officer who is in the wrong, and not them?

"Soliciting for bribes, and giving bribes is a crime; it is as simple as that," said Commr Gen Chihuri. "It is the duty of our police officers to arrest people who offer bribes to them. The main reason why we seem to be catching only police officers, especially those working on the roads, is because they are required to declare everything they have before they report for duty, including the money in their pockets. 

Like Commr Gen Chihuri said, it would take massive effort and total commitment to serving the nation for the police to weed out corruption – and credit should be given to the police who have been on the forefront of undertaking the radical efforts to clean their image. 

"Tinozviziva kuti vanhu vanoita chiokomuhomwe nekuti nguva dzose ngoma inongoda kurira ichiti kwangu kwangu," said social commentator and University of Zimbabwe lecturer, Dr. Vimbai Chivaura. "It is encouraging to read that the police leaders are unreservedly dealing with corrupt apples in their midst. But what if all people were to look themselves in the mirror at the end of every day, and in the process, they were to ask themselves if for that day, they had succeeded in living by the Code of Conduct from The Book of Going Forth by Day, which has a set of 42 laws to guide us in our daily lives? Guidelines like, I have not caused anyone to suffer pain or come to grief; I have not stolen anybody's land; I have not stolen from a grave; I have not taken food from a child; I have not polluted the air. We will realise that if each day we force ourselves to face our actions, we will be inspired to live a righteous life.

Yes; maybe a little introspection is just what the doctor ordered for society to return to moral ways of living their lives. As for the police, President Mugabe said we cannot call ourselves a disciplined force if we were in the habit of asking to be paid for public services we should offer freely to the people, because it is the government – not the people – that is supposed to take care of us. So if the government is struggling to meet its end of the bargain, why take it out on innocent people?

“We want you to be straightforward people," President Mugabe said. "You are representatives not only of Government, but of the people as a whole. If you want to be paid to do your job, then you are practising corruption and you cannot boast of having a well-disci­plined police.”

And that should be the message to every Zimbabwean citizen.