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National police spokesperson Charity Charamba

Temba Dube Senior Reporter—
AT least 12 police officers have been arrested in Bulawayo in the last five days for demanding bribes at roadblocks as the drive to stamp out corruption within the force intensifies. Residents were treated to a free movie at the rail-level crossing in Cowdray Park on Saturday when police officers tried to flee plain clothes detectives. A witness told Chronicle: “The detectives approached the roadblock in a kombi. They were stopped at the roadblock and the police ignored them, the same way they do with regular kombis”.

He added: “About 10 minutes later, one of the detectives was forced to get out of the kombi and pretend to be the conductor. He approached the officers.
“The detective gave a big female cop, popularly known as MaNdlovu, money and she pocketed it. The guy told her she was under arrest. That is when the drama started.”

The witness, a kombi driver who declined to be named, said the other police officers tried to run away but other detectives who were in the kombi, masquerading as passengers, gave chase.

“It was like an action comedy as cops took money out of their pockets and threw it away as they fled. I think the cops were out of shape due to spending too much time over the years just standing on the road waiting to harvest money from motorists. Four of them were quickly rounded up, but one got away,” he said.

Touts said the detectives recovered cash that some of the officers had stashed in their stockings.
Probably to disprove the maxim that lightning does not strike the same place twice, the detectives struck again at the same spot on Monday and using the same method, arrested four more police officers.

Yesterday morning, about four more police officers were arrested along Khami Road near the flyover.
A Chronicle news crew saw the police officers sitting by the roadside without their service caps, under the watchful eyes of plainclothes detectives.

A police source said Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri issued an order that police officers caught being involved in corruption should be instantly dismissed.
“The police have also been banned from using spikes to deflate the tyres of vehicles that flee roadblocks. There was a discussion where they were asked to explain who was making the spikes and under whose orders,” said the source.

Last month, a traffic police officer manning a roadblock in Gweru swallowed a $10 note allegedly given to her as a bribe at a roadblock in a bid to evade arrest by an anti-corruption team. The female officer was busted with six of her colleagues who were manning roadblocks at various points in Gweru by a team from the police anti-corruption unit.

They were accused of corruptly executing their duties.
National police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba yesterday said she was yet to receive a report about the arrests in Bulawayo.

“I am yet to receive a report. However, it has to be noted that anyone who is corrupt will be arrested. I also want to put the record straight . . . it is the police that make arrests, not the anti-corruption commission as reporters are fond of writing,” she said.