COMMISSIONER of Police, Francis Kabonde, has reiterated that the number of regular police officers is not enough to contain the crime rate in the country.
Mr Kabonde said this in Kabwe today during the official opening of the Police Reserves’ workshop that is being held at Masiye Motels.
Mr Kabonde observed that as the population expands, it is becoming more difficult for regular police to fight the crime alone.
He said that the Zambia Police attaches great importance to the Reserve Police because of the complimentary work that they render to the service.
The Police Commissioner said that it was a policy of the Zambia Police to train and retrain regular and reserve officers in order to make them more efficient in their work.
Mr Kabonde urged able-bodied men and women to come forward and join the Police Reserve wing so that the Police can cope up with the growing population of the country.
He challenged the reserves to exercise high levels of discipline and good behaviour because whatever they did would reflect on the Zambia Police service.
On promotions, he said that the Zambia Police would only promote officers that were able to deliver and also able to enforce discipline in the reserve wing.
The Police Commissioner said that although he was not promising, something would be done on the reserve officers’ allowances because they had not been updated.
Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police Ephraim Mateyo has dispatched a platoon of paramilitary officers to Livingstone in a bid to fight crime in the tourist capital.
Mr. Mateyo has since directed Southern Province Police Commanding Officer Lemmy Kajoba to personally supervise the operations in the area to ensure that sanity returns to Livingstone.
Mr. Mateyo told ZANIS that the paramilitary officers will report to the provincial commanding officer so that an operational order is prepared in order to create police presence in all residential and crime spot areas.
He said the core function and obligation of the Police Service is to safeguard people’s lives and their property through enhanced contemporary policing which embraces the community as partners in crime prevention and monitoring.
Mr. Mateyo said crime negatively impacts on both the economic and social life of the community and has since pledged to ensure that the Police Service improves the livelihood of the people in the country through a well-coordinated service delivery system.
As long as they have enough guns and good training. Let the army do the rest (killing thieves).
Viva Mateyo go ahead with your good work we will always support you.
Job well-done Officer Mateyo.
Why don’t you get some of those shu-shu-shu. I am sure there are enough grade 12 Certificate holders, possibly even Grade nine’s all in the name of espionage. Spy my ….ss
MUFUNA ZIGANTI!! bOSS
Sad revelation by Police Officer no.2. I personally think he should not have even mentioned this in his statement at Masiye Motel. He should have just made an Administrative recommendation to the powers that be to consider increasing the strength of the Police Service. Surely Zambians are tired and sick of such rhetoric and its high time someone took responsiblity for what they are paid.
Secondly, consider forming City Police Services. Example, Lusaka and other big cities should be urged to turn their so called Council Police departments into formidable entities, receive the same training that the national police service undertakes, be armed and deploy them to assist in this urban warfare
cont’d
called crime, or else deploy the Zambia National Service as a short term solution to this crime.
Thirdly, improve the working conditions and salaries of the existing Police Officers to comparative to their colleagues in other uniformed organisations like the Army. Today, some of the Police Officers have become part of the problem and not a solution to the high crime rate in the country because they want to make a quick ” back” to fend for their families.
You are right# 7 the police are a problem. They need to be part of the Solution.
dats very true the salaries and conditions of services in the civil service dat includes the police themselves are too low dats why you find dat the police officers are trying to make a living by having what they call a side hustle so increasing the number of officers operating on the same conditions will not solve a thing at all, you cant build the house with no foundation talking bout i will start with the windows dats way not possible fix the conditions all will be hood….dats all has to be done or else it will be a share waste of time increasing the number of officers no one wana work for something not worth its value.you know dat the crime rate in zambia is high do some…….
There are alot of graduates and grade 12 leavers roaming the streets of Zambia that can be put in the service. Especially that we are harbouring alot of foreigners, crime will forever be on the increase
Mwagwira nchito ba-Mateyo naba Kabonde. Livingstone is surely a worrying city and calls for your able action sirs.
As #1 has written, see how the Zambia Army and Zambia National Service can synergy your efforts to maintain law and order in our Zambia society.
Please do not drag the Army in these petty issues. Lets read and lets not belittle our troops to chasing thieves. Do you know the role of the Defence Force. Its not easy to be a soldier for your own information. This is how wee have forsaken these guys. Look at countries around you and see how they treasure and care for the people that safeguard the sovereignity of the Country. Lets taught of improving capacity in the Police and making the security companies viable. It needs new ideas and techniques and not lip services or mere threats. Ask the west Africans and DRC, they will tell you what any Army is!Help the Army do more training and improve their welfare not turning them into Police.
#12 I totally agree with you. Soldiers are not trained to catch thieves. They come in as a last resort which we have not reached in Zambia. There is actually need to educate Zambians on the role of the Military.Some think Soldiers are just lawless and ruthless.They is need to look after them. In Botswana, they build them houses and they are said to have copied from Zambia.Please ba Levy take care of these guys, we wil one day need their services. Lets not belittle them!Lets also standardise the Army, ZAF and ZNS in terms of conditions. Sometimes the Army look very poor.
There is actually alot to say about these guys in uniform. As old cops we don’t know where they are going. Todays problem is with current commanders who are working with their children. How do you feel comfortable to work with your son? Today, most of the senior officers are working with their children and grand children. Please allow your children to competitively get into the services. We don’t the quality that we had in our time. Yes conditions are poor and morale is low.Citizens have lost the respect because you have turned into beggers.WE did our best but we were not prepared for retirement.
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The issue of internal security starts with each individual think of your home security and then broaden that to a larger scale. Right now th role of maintaining law and order, prevention and crime detection has diversified so much, that these responsibilities are performed by the private security industry in an effort to lessen the burden on the state police and to promote proffessionalism in the security industry. I would like to suggest to the commisioner that, he considers engaging private security companies for crime detection using technnology such as CCTV to monitor traffic violators instead of flooding the streets with corrupt cops. Other avenues of policing can also be shared.
CCTV my butt, where do you think a place called Zambia would cough up monies to buy and install such cameras bro, dream on… a country where villagers climb trees and hills to be able to make a common cellphone call, simpliy cannot afford such luxury.
before that happens, get rid of, hunger, corruption, Mbaula’s, Koloboi’s, tuntembas, mishanga sellers, minibus callboys etc..
we have too m any police officers in offices and on the roads than those patroling our communities.the service pays our officers little cash which is just nothing.their risk allowances can not even buy a bandage.you will fins a situation we read in papers where a criminal has a bigger weapon then a cop, do you think a cop would want to go near such dengerous criminals thats why we see them coming 10:00hrs in the morning when the incident was reported at 01:00hrs
#17, Its a thought in the right direction. Im championing on the rease of some of these duties to be given to provide private security companies, not GRZ. It will also provide employment in varius specilised fields, involved in crime detection, prevention, analysis, prosecutions and detention. The idea is to allow experts in forensic, investigations, risk management and detention facility services play an active role in improving the current security situation, in terms of effective and efficent curbing of criminal accitivies.
Ooops! pole sana (Very sorry)
First line to read ‘release’ and second line to read ‘providers in’. Third line -‘various specialised’
The man in-charge of police, is not capable to bring down the crime rate because he has been there for so many years.We need somebody with full vision of stamping out the increasing crime.