23 Mar 2015

Kgosi Toteng Ndzonga of Nkange has decried the high crime rate in his village particularly break-ins of houses and businesses.

Speaking in an interview recently, Kgosi Ndzonga said with a population of over 4 000 residents, they registered cases of burglary almost every fortnight. He said these occur either in people’s houses or businesses, with perpetrators being some members of the community. 

Kgosi Ndzonga highlighted that such criminal activities has had one criminal last month shot dead at one of the business within the village. He said shortage of police officers in the village has contributed to some incidences of criminal activities. 

Kgosi Ndzonga explained that the villages used to have three police officers but now they are left with only one officer with one having been transferred while the other has gone for further training. With the full knowledge of the current state of law enforcement in the village, Kgosi Ndzonga said criminals are taking advantage of this.

He said some cases are failing due to the fact that members of the community prefer not to come forth and share information and mostly they do not want to be witnesses in cases.

Furthermore, he noted that some people opt not to reveal important information, which can lead to the arrest of culprits because they are afraid to be victimised by some members of the community for having led to the arrest of their children.

He said this has led to many cases being thrown out of courts of law because of lack of evidence, despite someone having full knowledge about the offence. Kgosi Ndzonga noted that he is going to appeal to authorities to have law enforcement officers increased in their village to help fight the ever increasing crime.

He added that it will be better if they could also have at least police officers at the rank of Inspector as the senior officer. Also, he said the authorities said they are unable to bring more officers to the village because of shortage of office accommodation.

He said in their situation, it is different in that they already have enough office space to offer them so that they can operate a 24 hour-shift service. 

On other issues, Kgosi Ndzonga said he has since urged farmers who had good yields in the previous ploughing season to preserve their produce because it appears this year the country is going to experience drought.

He said it will be upon Batswana to assist the government with supply of food because the limited rainfall the country received this year has led to many farmers leaving their fields empty handed. In addition, he said the few that managed to plough are faced with challenges of the wild animals , , particularly elephants , which are on the rampage in the fields. 

He noted that although they are being assisted by wildlife officers, it is often late after they have already suffered damages. 

Furthermore, he pointed out that this year they have also suffered the attack of lions, which killed about eight cattle and although they were informed that the lions have been chased away, they are not pleased as they feel they would come back. ENDS