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New uniforms for police fine, but…
2008-04-27 10:13:26
By Editor
By sheer coincidence, the recent announcement by the police force that it intends to introduce new sets of uniforms for its staff was made at around the time it was revealed that some law enforcers in Dar es Salaam are being investigated over an incident in which a civilian was robbed of some cash.
The two may at the outset seem unrelated, but it emerges, after deep reflection, that they very much are.
The current uniforms are to a great extent a carry-over from the colonial era and may be deemed to infect some of the wearers with a colonial mentality.
We thus salute the government for conceiving the idea of dressing up our custodians of law and order in a manner that both marches with the times, and rhymes with the agenda of a truly Tanzanian police force.
But as hinted at the beginning, some police officers are theft suspects, and theirs isn`t the first such case.
Several of their colleagues have faced similar and worse music in the form of dismissal and imprisonment over crimes that include armed robbery.
On a lesser scale, corruption by the traffic wing has reached alarming levels and is a source of great embarrassment.
The police was much cleaner in the immediate post-independence period, but progressively, some rotten elements sneaked in, or clean ones rotted while inside.
This is manifested by tendencies like liaising with robbers, being accessories to framing trumped-up charges and beating up peaceful suspects.
The uniform project will thus become meaningful only if it goes in tandem with recruiting right-calibre individuals and purging rotten elements.
Else, an unethical police officer in an impressive uniform would be no different from a morally rotten clergyman who dons beautiful robes.
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