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Let`s wage all-out war against crime
2007-09-01 08:31:33
By Editor
Many will be wondering whether the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (Ewura) will sustain the tempo of the campaign it set in motion earlier this week by suspending the services of two Dar es Salaam filling stations said to have been found selling adulterated diesel.
They will be doing that aware of the way numerous other similar exercises have taken off with a bang but ultimately crumbled with an even bigger bang long before their impact was really felt and long before those they were meant to discipline saw reason to reform.
If the version given by Ewura Petroleum Inspector Shaban Seleman is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then we are in very deep trouble.
This is self-explanatory because having people entrusted with the acquisition, distribution and sale of items as inflammable as petroleum products playing childish games can lead to disasters of earth-shattering proportions.
That is why we feel compelled to throw our full weight behind the Ewura operation, hoping that doing so will propel the agency into more vigorous action that will ensure that all those behind the suspected crime ring are identified, exposed, and dealt with in accordance with the law.
Unfortunately, many of our pieces of legislation are often found seriously deficient when it comes to their actual application and many criminal suspects easily filter through them and back into safe public life as if they never did anything wrong.
We have seen tragicomedies resulting from such inadequacies replayed with nauseating frequency in cases relating to offenses as `petty` as loitering and street-begging as well as those associated with much more serious crimes like hit-and-run driving, burglary and rape.
We have heard and seen self-confessed criminals escape the wrath of justice just because the law was silent on such and such details and therefore suspects deserved being given the benefit of the doubt.
While we would be the last ones to recommend that legal provisions or demands be made secondary to any other considerations, we think it would be in place for the law to be appropriately amended from time to time so that it serves as a better agent in deterring or forestalling rises in the incidence of crime.
We would be astonished hearing anyone suggesting that some laws are so sacrosanct that it is anathema for them to undergo changes as dictated by circumstances.
We have many case studies of changes having been made to suit certain exigencies.
Among these are the issue of having independent candidates contest parliamentary and presidential elections and, as recently as earlier this month, that of having Ewura legally armed with teeth that bite.
In its wisdom, the agency continues to go about its routine activities in an overly diplomatic way.
That may serve the purpose for some time but only if Ewura CEO Haruna Masebu and his subordinates understand that some diseases have no cure.
Offenders found impossible to reform deserve no mercy; their games are our death.
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