On Monday, September 9 2002, the first edition of the now defunct Daily Mirror hit the streets. I was its chief reporter. The paper, owned by Ibbo Mandaza, immediately got the attention of many. It ran with the front page headline, Chihuri must go, and I was the author of that story.
corruptionwatch WITH TAWANDA MAJONI
On Tuesday evening my news editor came down to the newsroom and informed me that a superintendent — I have forgotten his name — from Police General Headquarters (PGHQ) wanted to talk to me. I went up to the news editor’s office and the superintendent ordered me to urgently see him at his office “for a chat”. I agreed, I guess out of naïve bravado.
Some 10 minutes later, the same superintendent called again and said I must call off going to PGHQ. However, two evenings after, a team led by Chrispen Makedenge, then an inspector leading the Law and Order section, laid an ambush for me as I was coming from gathering information on an army scandal at the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) and arrested me.
Two things struck me. When they took me at Corner House, they did not handcuff me, and only did so when we got to Harare Central Police Station. When I laughingly asked, one of them said: “Madhara aya anofanirwa kuona une njema. [Our bosses must see you in handcuffs].”
Secondly, as the interrogation, quite aimless I must say, spilled into the early hours of Friday, I started complaining that there was no need to keep me in that small office as we could still continue the following day. A sympathetic cop wrote something on a piece of bond paper and flashed it in my face before crumpling it and tearing it up. It read: “The bosses are waiting at the Senior Officers’ Mess to know who gave you the story.”
The story quoted senior police officers who were saying Chihuri must urgently leave office because his health was failing, and that he had threatened a coup ahead of the February 2002 presidential election if Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC-T leader, won.
It became clear to me that my arrest had nothing to do with the veracity of the story, but a witch hunt to establish who among the senior officers had made the claims so that, possibly, the sources could be dealt with. After all, my interrogators never looked sure what they had arrested me for, hopping from one charge to another. In other words, someone out there was abusing police powers for some gain that had nothing to do with professional police work.
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Then, I saw the arrest as harassment. In retrospect, though, it was corruption. In essence, corruption is the abuse of power that especially powerful people are entrusted with for private, and sometimes collective gain. It entails the deviant manipulation of systems and illegitimate use of power. When it is done by law enforcers, it is called police corruption. Police corruption happens in many ways and it is useful for people to understand the forms it takes for more effective responses.
Corruption of retribution in the police, such as the one I suffered, is one such form that many never consider as such. But it is prevalent. Police officers, both low-ranking and senior, often engage in this form of corruption. They use police resources and time to “fix” their perceived enemies. For instance, we have often heard of junior officers who pick fights with others at the bar or over a lover, rush back to the police station, put on their uniforms and use police vehicles to go and arrest their rivals on trumped up charges.
The victims spend at least a night in filthy and overcrowded police cells and often pay money for their freedom and are purportedly “warned and released”. The more unfortunate ones are even taken to court where their cases crumble.
Another subtle form of corruption that is also rampant within the law enforcement agents is corruption of authority. In this case, officers receive “gifts” from people merely because they are police with influential positions. In this case, it is not obvious that they are breaking the law. Quite often, a local businessman who opens his beer outlet well after the stipulated hours is seen visiting the officer-in-charge, leaving “money for a drink” or buying him or her groceries. While the Police Act commands that all gifts must be declared to the commissioner-general, this is hardly enforceable.
Internal payoffs are another largely unsung form of corruption. This involves the distribution of rewards to networks or circles of police officers. The rewards, which are mostly motivated by other prevailing forms of corruption or unprofessional trends, include material gifts given off to “deserving” officers. Stories are often told of senior traffic officers who have built syndicates of junior cops who, on a daily basis, surrender huge amounts of money to them after stints on the roads. The traffic section is considered lucrative because it presents junior officers with the opportunity to extort money from motorists, and the bosses know that. Sometimes, junior officers even pay the bosses to be transferred to the traffic section.
Traffic bribes and extortions are a common form of corruption, and perhaps the most known and talked about. Who doesn’t know about public transport operators leaving $2 or so at every roadblock so that the officers turn a blind eye? We all know how traffic cops keep lists of operators who have paid or not on a particular day. And we also know that traffic cops are given daily targets to meet, as if traffic offences are a form of industrial production.
The culture of deviance becomes worse when top cops divert money generated through traffic fines to buy luxuries that they dish out to each. The assumption is that part of the money is supposed to help enhance police operations. However, there are tell-tale signs that senior officers are corruptly using large sums of this money to fund their luxurious lifestyles. Just go to where they stay and observe the fleets of cars they now own. This is part of the internal payoffs mentioned above.
Bribery in the police services agency has now assumed a trend with far-reaching moral and professional implications. They say catch them young, and this is exactly what is happening at police training depots. For several years now, police recruits and graduates have testified to their instructors soliciting bribes from them in order to pass key courses. What, then, do you expect from a young officer who graduated from Morris Deposit by paying bribes?
Away from the training depots, corruption is also taking the form of shakedowns and fixes. This is when officers take bribes and don’t follow through criminal violations and manipulate investigations to favour suspects. As a result, many people who are supposed to be in jail or custody are roaming free while many who are innocent are in remand prison.
Tawanda Majoni is the national co-ordinator at Information for Development Trust (IDT), a non-profit organisation promoting access to information on public and private sector transparency and accountability, and can be contacted on [email protected]
