chihuriBULAWAYO – Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri (pictured), instructed his subordinates to deny government auditors access to police records, in a bid to hide glaring loopholes in the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP).

Zimbabwe’s inclusive government, at the instigation of Public Service Minister, Elphas Mukonoweshuro (MDC-T), embarked on an audit of the civil service and its payroll, in a bid to rid the system of massive corruption.
The audit was expected to disclose tens of thousands of “ghost” workers. It involved a physical count of all civil servants, excluding the army, which is not classified under the Public Service.
Although the audit was approved by cabinet, it met strong resistance from Zanu (PF), which is being accused of paying a big chunk of the taxpayers’ money to its youth militia, most of whom are too under-qualified to be civil servants and are only used to terrorise voters at election time.
ZRP Internal sources told The Zimbabwean this week that when the audit was announced, they received an internal signal from Chihuri ordering them not to co-operate with the auditors.
The signal was sent out by Faustino Mazango, commissioner responsible for human resources, and is said to have threatened any police officer who defied this order.
“The signal was written in early November and addressed to all police stations in the country,” said a Bulawayo-based police officer, who must remain anonymous for obvious reasons.
“The signal ordered us not to allow the auditors any access to police record books containing the names, force numbers and qualifications of each member of the ZRP.”
Another police officer, also from Bulawayo, said Chihuri was determined to frustrate the audit, which would have exposed him.
“Chihuri keeps lying to the nation that the ZRP has 60,000 members, but the actual strength is far less than 35,000, because thousands of junior officers quit in large numbers during the past decade, in protest over poor working conditions and political persecution. He feared that the audit would reveal all this,” said the police officer.
“Even our recruitment drives have failed to address that skills gap.”
A senior police officer from Police General Headquarters in Harare also confirmed that there were less than 40,000 police officers in Zimbabwe today.
He added that when the civil service audit was first announced, Chihuri tried to cover fill the gap by enlisting members of the Zanu (PF) youth militia, who were already living inside police stations, and some civilian volunteers serving as members of the Neighbourhood Watch Committee.
“He also ordered the incorporation of general hands whose duties involved cleaning offices and cooking at police canteens. But still this was not enough, leading to the order not to allow access to police records.”
The police sources said that the admission of the green bombers to the force flew in the face of ZRP’s claims of professionalism.
“These are people who failed to meet the minimum educational requirements for entry into the ZRP, yet they are now fast-tracked without even going through formal training,” fumed one officer.
The minimum qualifications are five O level passes, including maths and English.

The Zimbabwean