Zimbabwe’s controversial police have been described in a new report as “little more than an officially authorised shakedown and a means by which Zimbabwe’s broke government seeks to fund a massively under-resourced police force”.
Consultant for the Institute for Security Studies’ peace and security research programme, Derek Matyszak, highlighted in an ISS report last month that the source of the problem was a decision to allow the police to retain a percentage of the fines they collected.
“This creates an incentive for the over-regulation of traffic and inducement to find as many drivers as possible guilty of traffic offences, real or imagined,” he said, explaining that drivers needed to be induced to hand over cash.
