-ratio at one cop for 1 214 people
ROSELINE MUTARE
MASVINGO-Home Affairs Minister, Kazembe Kazembe stunned the nation when he revealed in the National Assembly that the country has only 14 000 police officers against the required 50 000.
Kazembe was responding to a question raised in the National Assembly on the unavailability of base stations in resettlement areas throughout the country.
He said due to shortage of staff and other requirements the Zimbabwe Republic Police is incapacitated to have base stations for the convenience of the citizens hence a surge in crime rate.
“For instance, in the country, we are expected to have 50 000 police officers in line with our population. Even in foreign countries, there are ratios they use to determine how many police officers are needed.
“At the moment, we have 14,000 police officers. It is our wish to reach 50 000; the ones we have at the moment are few, but it would be good if they were 50 000.”
Zimbabwe has a population of 17million people and that means one police officer for every 1 214 people against the United Nations recommended ratio of 1 to 220.
“At the moment, we are in the process of looking for people who want to join the police force because we are losing a lot of people most of the time. Before we think of creating new police posts, there is a shortage of police officers in the existing police stations, which is one of the issues that we are fixing.
He added that limited resources are also slowing expansion efforts.
“It would be our wish to put police posts everywhere, but we do not have enough resources because of the statistics I mentioned,” Kazembe added.
The nation has witnessed a spike in crime where robbers are targeting homes where large sums of money are kept including banks and money transfer agencies.
He also noted that officers are leaving the force in number for greener pastures further exacerbating the shortage of staff.
“The shortage is a result of some police officers changing professions, resigning, and retiring.
“So, for us to replace them, we cannot do that alone as the police. We have to seek concurrence from the Treasury and the Public Service Commission because they are the employer.
“We have informed them that we have a shortage of 5,000 police officers. We are recruiting police officers yearly and working towards ensuring that we reach the 50,000 mark,” he added.
